Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the wicked; might makes right; fear silences the power of the law.
Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.
Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.
Death either destroys or unhusks us. If it means liberation, better things await us when our burden s gone: if destruction, nothing at all awaits us; blessings and curses are abolished.
