Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords-philosophy, art, poetry, love, scandal, and the weather.

Opinion has ever been stronger than law.

Chill penury weighs down the heart itself; and though it sometimes be endured with calmness, it is but the calmness of despair.

Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.

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.

Where the vivacity of the intellect and the strength of the passions exceed the development of the moral faculties the character is likely to be embittered or corrupted by extremes, either of adversity or prosperity.

In morals, what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.