Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose

Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend

Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good

The habitude of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional

Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one

My thoughts are my company I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age

Ambition has but one reward for all A little power, a little transient fame A grave to rest in, and a fading name!

Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked.

We talk on principle, but we act on interest