How difficult it is to get men to believe that any other man can or does act from disinterestedness!

It is highly convenient to believe in the infinite mercy of God when you feel the need of mercy, but remember also his infinite justice.

The greatest geniuses have always attributed everything to God, as if conscious of being possessed of a spark of His divinity.

Never let your love for your profession overshadow your religious feeling. Depend on it that religion will strengthen, not weaken, your energies, and will not only make you a better sailor, but a superior man. Professional studies are not to be neglected; but, on the other hand, take care how you fall into the common error of believing they are the remedy for all the ills of life.

All government is an evil, but, of the two form's of that evil, democracy or monarchy, the sounder is monarchy; the more able to do its will, democracy.

Newton's health, and confusion to mathematics.

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.