The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful is that they can take your life; but the same can be said of the most weak.

Those who visit foreign nations, but who associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs 'caelum non animum mutant': they see new meridians, but the same men, and with heads as empty as their pockets.

That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.

Villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post.

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.

It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross there is in our composition.

The greatest miracle that the Almighty could perform would be to make a bad man happy, even in heaven; he must unparadise that blessed place to accomplish it. In its primary signification, all vice--that is, all excess--brings its own punishment even here.