It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest.

To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous; or even if he did you would find fault with him as a pedant.

No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.

The great requisite for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination.

Languages happily restrict the mind to what is of its own native growth and fitted for it, as rivers and mountains bond countries; or the empire of learning, as well as states, would become unwieldy and overgrown.

Whatever interests is interesting.

Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment; hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had and have no wish for.