The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.

A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself.

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.

We go on a journey to be free of all impediments; to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others

Principle is a passion for truth.

A situation in a public office is secure, but laborious and mechanical, and without the great springs of life, hope and fear.

A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.