Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.

There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass ""no day without a line""-visit no place without the company of a book-we may with ease fill libraries or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.

A man who does not endeavour to seem more than he is will generally be thought nothing of. We habitually make such large deductions for pretence and imposture that no real merit will stand against them. It is necessary to set off our good qualities with a certain air of plausibility and self-importance, as some attention to fashion is necessary.

He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.

We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.

Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.

You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion.