It is sublime to think and say of another, I need never meet, or speak, or write to him: we need not reinforce ourselves, or send tokens of remembrance; I rely on him as on myself: if he did thus and thus, I know it was right.

Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore!

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

In a tavern everybody puts on airs except the landlord.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.