There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

[Science is] the desire to know causes.

The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.

Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.

I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.

Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valor.

Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable.