Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.
Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.
They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
The greatest gift is a passion for reading.
Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites.
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him.
You can never plan the future by the past.
It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.
Ambition can creep as well as soar.
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver, and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
Good order is the foundation of all things.
Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.
