A Wise Man Loses Nothing, If He

No Man Is So Exquisitely Honest Or Upright In Living, But That Ten Times In His Life He Might Not Lawfully Be Hanged.

Laws Gain Their Authority From Actual Possession And Custom: It Is Perilous To Go Back To Their Origins; Laws, Like Our Rivers, Get Greater And Nobler As They Roll Along: Follow Them Back Upstream To Their Sources And All You Find Is A Tiny Spring, Hardly Recognizable; As Time Goes By It Swells With Pride And Grows In Strength.

In His Commerce With Men I Mean Him To Include- And That Principally- Those Who Live Only In The Memory Of Books. By Means Of History He Will Frequent Those Great Souls Of Former Years. If You Want It To Be So, History Can Be A Waste Of Time; It Can Also Be, If You Want It To Be So, A Study Bearing Fruit Beyond Price.

Just As In Habiliments It Is A Sign Of Weakness To Wish To Make Oneself Noticeable By Some Peculiar And Unaccustomed Fashion, So, In Language, The Quest For New-fangled Phrases And Little-known Words Comes From A Puerile And Pedantic Ambition.

Presumption Is Our Natural And Original Malady. The Most Vulnerable And Frail Of All Creatures Is Man, And At The Same Time The Most Arrogant.