“There is no merit where there is no trial; and till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, and faith for falsehood.”

Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.

Union of hearts, not hands, does a marriage make, and sympathy of mind keeps love awake.

Let never man be bold enough to say, Thus, and no farther shall my passion stray: The first crime, past, compels us into more, And guilt grows fate, that was but choice, before.

Let shining Charity adorn your zeal, The noblest impulse generous minds can feel.

Customs form us all, our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs; are consequences of our place of birth.

Hide not thy tears; weep boldly, and be proud to give the flowing virtue manly way; it is nature’s mark to know an honest heart by.

O marriage! marriage! what a curse is thine, Where hands alone consent and hearts abhor.

Shun fear, it is the ague of the soul! a passion man created for himself–for sure that cramp of nature could not dwell in the warm realms of glory.

Reason gains all people by compelling none.

Art, however innocent, looks like deceiving.

The man with but one idea in his head is sure to exaggerate that to top-heaviness, and thus he loses his equilibrium.

First, then, a woman will, or won’t, – depend on’t; If she will do’t, she will; and there’s an end on’t. But, if she won’t, since safe and sound your trust is, Fear is affront: and jealousy injustice.

Joys, which we do not know, we do not wish.

Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt in soft adoption of another’s sorrow.

Law that shocks equity is reason’s murderer.

Order, thou eye of action.

If we only make merit but have not stopped doing bad things, then we will never have a day of completion. It is like an overturned bowl which is left outside in the rain.

Men of real merit, and whose noble and glorious deeds we are ready to acknowledge, are yet not to be endured when they vaunt their own actions.

There was certainly merit to the criticism that the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had about how James Comey handled the Hillary Clinton investigation.

Now an infinite happiness cannot be purchased by any price less than that which is infinite in value; and infinity of merit can only result from a nature that is infinitely divine or perfect

envy, as a rule, is of success rather than of merit. No one would have objected to his talent deserving recognition – only to his getting it.

Modesty is a valuable merit … in people who have no other, and the appearance of it is extremely useful to those who have.

Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power

To believe something in the face of evidence and against reason – to believe something by faith – is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect.