If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.

No really great man ever thought himself so.

The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.

The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.

The admiration of power in others is as common to man as the love of it in himself; the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave.

An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.

Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously; wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature.