A mother should give her children a superabundance of enthusiasm; that after they have lost all they are sure to lose on mixing with the world, enough may still remain to prompt fated support them through great actions.

Few persons have courage enough to appear as good as they really are.

Since the generality of persons act from impulse, much more than from principle, men are neither so good nor so bad as we are apt to think them.

Only when the voice of duty is silent, or when it has already spoken, may we allowably think of the consequences of a particular action.

Man without religion is the creature of circumstances: Religion is above all circumstances, and will lift him up above them.

Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost always too little.

It is a proof of our natural bias to evil, that gain is slower and harder than loss in all things good; but in all things bad getting is quicker and easier than getting rid of.