They who boast of their tolerance merely give others leave to be as careless about religion as they are themselves. A walrus might as well pride itself on its endurance of cold.

Few minds are sunlike, sources of light in themselves and to others: many more are moons that shine with a borrowed radiance. One may easily distinguish the two: the former are always full; the latter only now and then, when their suns are shining full upon them.

Some persons take reproof good-humoredly enough, unless you are so unlucky as to hit a sore place. Then they wince and writhe, and start up and knock you down for your impertinence, or wish you good morning.

Every wise man lives in an observatory.

We look to our last sickness for repentance, unmindful that it is during a recovery men repent, not during a sickness.

In a mist the heights can for the most part see each other; but the valleys cannot.

When we skim along the surface of history we see little but the rough barren rocks that rise out of it.