“Mystery magnifies danger as the fog the sun.”

Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.

That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.

We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.

The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

It is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.

If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself; all that runs over will be yours.

I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.

Butler compared the tongues of these eternal talkers to race-horses, which go the faster the less weight they carry.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.

Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.

The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.

Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, and follows them to the grave

One can unite the French only under the threat of danger. One cannot simply bring together a nation that produces 265 kinds of cheese.

He could tell she was a little risky but he often enjoyed the taste of danger.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

If you think that American imperialism and its globalised, capitalist form is the most dangerous thing in the world, that means you don’t think the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea or the Taliban is as bad.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

And once you’re unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you’re unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary.

Where destruction is the motive, unity is dangerous.