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

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.

What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients.

The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.

One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.

None but those who are happy in themselves can make others so.