“It is with nations as with individuals, those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other.”

To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.

A house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them.

We are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree.

Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it.

Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.

Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.

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.