“Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.”

A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.

Wealth after all is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much and wants more.

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.

Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.

Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men; but when they do, they go greater lengths.

He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.

In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest.

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

Total freedom from error is what none of us will allow to our neighbors; however we may be inclined to flirt a little with such spotless perfection ourselves.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.