The virtue of Paganism was strength: the virtue of Christianity is obedience.

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.

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.

Many are ambitious of saying grand things, that is, of being grandiloquent.

Happy the boy whose mother is tired of talking nonsense to him before he is old enough to know the sense of it.

The power of faith will often shine forth the most when the character is naturally weak.

Friendship closes its eye rather than see the moon eclipsed; while malice denies that it is ever at the full.