What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.

A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury, for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it.

I as little fear that God will damn a man that has charity, as I hope that the priests can save one who has not.

Genuine religion is not so much a matter of feeling as a matter of principle.

To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.

Say first, of god above or man below; what can we reason but from what we know.