Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.

A court of heraldry sprung up to supply the place of crusade exploits, to grant imaginary shields and trophies to families that never wore real armor, and it is but of late that it has been discovered to have no real jurisdiction.

Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.

Anger and the thirst of revenge are a kind of fever; fighting and lawsuits, bleeding,--at least, an evacuation. The latter occasions a dissipation of money; the former, of those fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fermentation.

A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.

It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.