“Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.”

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you’ve got to keep your feet warm.

I like better for one to say some foolish thing upon important matters than to be silent. That becomes the subject of discussion and dispute, and the truth is discovered.

Time, matter, space – all, it may be, are no more than a point.

The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.

Whatever dressing one gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born.

You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.

There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.

If a misplaced admiration shows imbecility, an affected criticism shows vice of character. Expose thyself rather to appear a beast than false.

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.

The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.

There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

He who has learned how to obey will know how to command.

What you can’t enforce, do not command.

Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time that it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place.

O Allah, You know that the only thing I want in this life Is to be obedient to Your command. Even the living sight of my eyes Is service at your court

A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence and refinement so they think they will impress others with their command of obscure words.

Women like me bleed on command.

Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps

Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a Church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command.