“If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.”

War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.

God is as great in minuteness as He is in magnitude.

The acquirements of science maybe termed the armor of the mind.

Pride requires very costly food-its keeper’s happiness.

Physicians must discover the weaknesses of the human mind, and even condescend to humor them, or they will never be called in to cure the infirmities of the body.

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.

Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.

Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right without them.

He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still.

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it.

When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply.

Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.

A coxcomb begins by determining that his own profession is the first; and he finishes by deciding that he is the first of profession.

Revenge is fever in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse–a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.

There’s no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom.

..But maybe this was a defense mechanism. Maybe my mind was making me see things i refused to accept were gone forever. It was filling the void, because that was easier than letting go.

Experience informs us that the first defence of weak minds is to recriminate.

Defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory.

Of Dickens’ style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules…

We cannot change the way the world is, but by opening ourselves to the world as it is, we may find that gentleness, decency and bravery are available – not only to us, but to all human beings.

The aims of life are the best defense against death.

You want to keep the defense guessing.