True modesty and true pride are much the same thing: both consist in setting a just value on ourselves - neither more nor less.

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.

If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.

Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool?

The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.