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.

There are men whom you will never dislodge from an opinion, except by taking possession of it yourself.

The praises of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.

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

How idle it is to call certain things God-sends! as if there was anything else in the world.

The feeling is often the deeper truth, the opinion the more superficial one.

Moral prejudices are the stopgaps of virtue; and, as is the case with other stopgaps, it is often more difficult to get either out or in through them than through any other part of the fence.