“Who does more earnestly long for a change than he who is uneasy in his present circumstances? And who run to create confusions with so desperate a boldness as those who have nothing to lose, hope to gain by them?”

Laws could be passed to keep the leader of a government from getting too much power.

What is deferred is not avoided.

Kindness and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men’s hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words.

The way to heaven out of all places is of length and distance.

Oh! blame not the bard.

Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was there one man was only punished on this occasion.

Most people know nothing about learning; many despise it. Dummies reject as too hard whatever is not dumb.

We cannot go to heaven in featherbeds.

There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.

The Utopians feel that slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable.

One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.

I should only ever tell the king what he ought to do, not what he could do. For if the lion knows his own strength, no man could control him.

For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble; and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust.

You wouldn’t abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn’t control the winds.

Every man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.

Occupy your mind with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill them with bad ones.

There is a joy available that the deepest grief cannot put out. No circumstance or person can take away the joy God gives.

I am going to judge my circumstances by Jesus’ love, not Jesus’ love by my circumstances.

Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.

The need to be loved and protected is at a peak when we feel abandoned and are particularly vulnerable to difficult circumstances.

The gospel does not promise you better life circumstances; it promises you a better life.

An Experiment, like every other event which takes place, is a natural phenomenon; but in a Scientific Experiment the circumstances are so arranged that the relations between a particular set of phenomena may be studied to the best advantage.

The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter than upon its own nature.

In various and different circumstances certain objects and individuals are going to turn out to be vital. The wager of survival cannot, by its nature, reveal which, in advance of events.