Satan is to be punished eternally in the end, but for a while he triumphs.

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

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.

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

Do your duty, and don't swerve from it. Do that which your conscience tells you to be right, and leave the consequences to God.

The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.

The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.