Social opinion is like a sharp knife. There are foolish people who regard it only with terror, and dare not touch or meddle with it. There are more foolish people, who, in rashness or defiance, seize it by the blade, and get cut and mangled for their pains. And there are wise people, who grasp it discreetly and boldly by the handle, and use it to carve out their own purposes.

Even virtue itself, all perfect as it is, requires to be inspirited by passion; for duties are but coldly performed which are but philosophically fulfilled.

The true purpose of education is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us.

A man may be as much a fool from the want of sensibility as the want of sense.

Of how many women might the history be comprised in those few words - 'she lived, suffered, and was buried'!

There are no such self-deceivers as those who think they reason when they only feel.

All my own experience of life teaches me the contempt of cunning, not the fear. The phrase "profound cunning," has always seemed to me a contradiction in terms. I never knew a cunning mind which was not either shallow, or on some point diseased.