The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.

I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it.

The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.

The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.

It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.

We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives.

Men of the greatest genius are not always the most prodigal of their encomiums. But then it is when their range of power is confined, and they have in fact little perception, except of their own particular kind of excellence.