If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.

The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.

So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.

Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.

The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints.

The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.