 Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. |
| We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win. |
| I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect. |
| The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. |
| History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. |
| I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes. |
| It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work. |
| A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute. |
| The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature. |
| Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism. |
| My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language. |
| My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India. |
| The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. |
| Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty. |
| Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. |
| Our work is the presentation of our capabilities. |
| I was never less alone than when by myself. |
| Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. |
| The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive. |
| The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. |
