When one can do better than everyone else in the same walk, one does not make any very painful exertions to outdo oneself. The progress of improvement ceases nearly at the point where competition ends.

What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it.

The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.

Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy.

One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.

Avarice is the miser's dream, as fame is the poet's.

To-day kings, to-marrow beggars, it is only when they are themselves that they are nothing.