Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.
Self-love is a busy prompter.
Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
In his comic scenes, Shakespeare seems to produce, without labor, what no labor can improve.
It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.
The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.
Preserve me from unseasonable and immoderate sleep.
Probably no one will ever know whether it is better to wear a nightcap or not.
The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.
Social sorrow loses half its pain.
Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past without looking forward to the future.
The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone.
Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in conservation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack.
Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.
Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.
I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.
Suspicion is very often a useless pain.
A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.
The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their meaning.
Tears are often to be found where there is little sorrow, and the deepest sorrow without any tears.