Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity..

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them..

Doubt is the vestibule of faith..

Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her..

Avarice has ruined more men than prodigality, and the blindest thoughtlessness of expenditure has not destroyed so many fortunes as the calculating b….

In its primary signification, all vice, that is, all excess, brings on its own punishment, even here. By certain fixed, settled and established laws ….

Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils..

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds..

The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all their money for health..

That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome..

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost..

A man's profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second; but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on ….

Death is the only sovereign whom no partiality can warp, and no price corrupt..

Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, and follows them to the grave.

Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the ….

That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources..

There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise..

As we ascend in society, like those who climb a mountain, we shall find that the line of perpetual congelation commences with the higher circles; and….

Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat..

Natural good is' so intimately connected with moral good, and natural evil with moral evil, that I am as certain as if I heard a voice from heaven pr….

It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend; but hones….