It is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune, or the hopelessness of its desires, but of a mind preying on itself, and disgusted with, or indifferent to all other things.

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

No truly great person ever thought themselves so.

Despair swallows up cowardice.

The more a man writes, the more he can write.

I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it - between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power.

Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement; it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.