I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.

The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.

There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.

Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.

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

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