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.

A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.

To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous; or even if he did you would find fault with him as a pedant.

The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it.

A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangerous as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery.

A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.

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.