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

Hope is the best part of our riches.

Alas, the transports beauty can inspire!

The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.

Four sweet lips, two pure souls, and one undying affection, – these are love’s pretty ingredients for a kiss.

In the assurance of strength there is strength; and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their powers.

It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

We give our best affections to the beautiful, only our second best to the useful.

Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was a business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by business, business is war.

False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.

There are seaons when our passions have slept so long that we know not whether they still exist in us. So does flax forget that it is combustible when the fire is away from it.

Life is indeed either a rich possession or a poor, according as it is made subservient to noble aims or ignoble pleasures.

Discretion is the salt, and fancy the sugar of life; the one preserves, the other sweetens it.

Great warriors, like great earthquakes, are principally remembered for the mischief they have done.

Give me the character and I will forecast the event.

To vindicate the sanctity of human life by taking it is an outrage upon reason. The spectacle of a human being dangling at the end of a gallows-rope is a degradation of humanity.

Everything is dangerous to him that is afraid of it.

Populism is dangerous.

The extremes of jungles, mountains, and deserts are inherently dangerous places.

We think, “Well, what are you gonna do?” In a way, that little instinct, that “What are you gonna do?” is the most dangerous thing in the world.

What I learned at that moment was the extraordinary clout that religious organizations can have to impose their theological views on others. And I found it exasperating and dangerous.

The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error.

The people I’ve encountered who are really dangerous in my life don’t go around with their fangs drawn – they are dangerous because of the way they interpret what’s going on.

It’s a dangerous thing when someone gets up in the morning and has nothing to eat.