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

The mind is like a trunk: if well-packed, it holds almost every thing; if ill-packed, next to nothing.

One saves oneself much pain, by taking pains; much trouble, by taking trouble.

If you wish a general to be beaten, send him a ream full of instructions; if you wish him to succeed, give him a destination, and bid him conquer.

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.

Curiosity is little more than another name for Hope.

Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in.