The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest show of magnanimity and the least of it in reality.

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

A proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it.

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.

The more a man writes, the more he can write.

Genius is native to the soil where it grows — is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun — and is not a hot - house plant or an exotic.