“Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.”
“The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.”
“Life is a comedy for those who think... and a tragedy for those who feel.”
“This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.”
“Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.”
“Men are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.”
“Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.”
“It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.”
“Alexander at the head of the world never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school.”
“I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one's tongue don't move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.”
“Old friends are the great blessings of one's later years. Half a word conveys one's meaning. They have a memory of the same events, have the same mode of thinking. I have young relations that may grow upon me, for my nature is affectionate, but can they grow [To Be] old friends?”
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveler from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”