“They make a desert and call it peace.”

The love of fame is a love that even the wisest of men are reluctant to forgo.

None make a greater show of sorrow than those who are most delighted.

Modest fame is not to be despised by the highest characters. [Lat., Modestiae fama neque summis mortalibus spernenda est.]

The hatred of those who are near to us is most violent.

Custom adapts itself to expediency.

Things forbidden have a secret charm.

A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind it.

No hatred is so bitter as that of near relations.

There are odious virtues; such as inflexible severity, and an integrity that accepts of no favor.

Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.

Kindness, so far as we can return it, is agreeable.

So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.

Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.

He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day; But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again.

Those in supreme power always suspect and hate their next heir.

When a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.

The marvellous instinct with which women are usually credited seems too often to desert them on the only occasions when it would be of any real use. One would say it was there for trivialities only

Critic, relent!Your hope for repentanceWill meet with disapppointment.For this is the life,Not desert tents,Not camel’s milk!

Look at you, you madman! Screaming you are thirsty and dying in a desert, when all around you there is nothing but water!

When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.

Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.

As our Father makes many a flower to bloom unseen in the lonely desert, [let us] do all that we can do, as under God’s eye, though no other eye ever take note of it.

The deity who stalked the deserts of the Middle East millennia ago-and who seems to have abandoned them to bloodshed in his name ever since-is no one to consult on questions of ethics.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.