Mistrusts sometimes come over one's mind of the justice of God. But let a real misery come again, and to whom do we fly? To whom do we instinctively and immediately look up?

Nothing is difficult; it is only we who are indolent.

There must be more malice than love in the hearts of all wits.

No man, perhaps, is so wicked as to commit evil for its own sake. Evil is generally committed under the hope of some advantage the pursuit of virtue seldom obtains. Yet the most successful result of the most virtuous heroism is never without its alloy.

Danger is the very basis of superstition. It produces a searching after help supernaturally when human means are no longer supposed to be available.

The longer a man lives in this world the more he must be convinced that all domestic quarrels had better never be obtruded on the public; for, let the husband be right, or let him be wrong, there is always a sympathy existing for women which is certain to give the man the worst of it.

The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.