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

There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent.

The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.

A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth.

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.

The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.

Persons of slender intellectual stamina dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street.