Every Other Author May Aspire To Praise;

They Whose Activity Of Imagination Is Often Shifting The Scenes Of Expectation, Are Frequently Subject To Such Sallies Of Caprice As Make All Their Actions Fortuitous, Destroy The Value Of Their Friendship, Obstruct The Efficacy Of Their Virtues, And Set Them Below The Meanest Of Those Who Persist In Their Resolutions, Execute What They Design, And Perform What They Have Promised.

It Is Man's Own Fault, It Is From Want Of Use, If His Mind Grows Torpid In Old Age.

More Is Learned In A Public Than In A Private School, From Emulation. There Is The Collision Of Mind With Mind, Or The Radiation Of Many Minds Pointing To One Center.

I Have Adopted The Roman Sentiment, That It Is More Honorable To Save A Citizen Than To Kill An Enemy.

The Parallel Circumstances And Kindred Images To Which We Readily Conform Our Minds Are, Above All Other Writings, To Be Found In The Lives Of Particular Persons, And Therefore No Species Of Writing Seems More Worthy Of Cultivation Than Biography.