“There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.”

“We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.”

“To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical.[Fr., Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosophe.]”

“When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.”

“When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true.”

“When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”

“Earth's a howling wilderness,Truculent with fraud and force.”

“The sea is masculine, the type of active strength. Look, what egg-shells are drifting all over it, each one, like ours, filled with men in ecstasies of terror, alternating with cockney conceit, as the sea is rough or smooth. Is this sad-colored circle an eternal cemetery?”

“Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.”

“So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.”

“I really didn't say everything I said.”

“Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught.”

“Glory grows guilty of detested crimes.”

“But shall we wear these glories for a day? Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?”

“Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing of her gallèd eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!”

“The mightier man, the mightier is the thing That makes him honored or begets him hate; For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.”

“No particular scandal one can touch but it confounds the breather.”