To be a really good historian is perhaps the rarest of intellectual distinctions.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons.

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

Your eyes will always be closer to your soul than to any other part of your body except the heart.

I was quite a weird kid because I didn't like getting presents. I don't know why. I just went for books all the time.

We should so work as if we were to be saved by our works; and so rely on Jesus Christ, as if we did no works.

Imagining something is better than remembering something.

Let's not be optimistic in the irreversibly irresponsible way that tends to happen with the crazies of geo-engineering. But let's talk about what sorts of changes we can make.

To live in Venice is like being domesticated in the heart of an opal.

That really hurt me- I tried to help those children but people just wanted to make fun of me.It was cruel and unnecessary.

Never give up your power to another person.

A live unexamined isn't worth living. I will add, "A life unlived isn't worth examining.