We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.

We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries; and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason because it happens to be above it.

It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave, than to expend it, like a gentleman.

Slight sorrow for sin is sufficient, provided it at the same time produces amendment.

The acquirements of science maybe termed the armor of the mind.

If often happens too, both in courts and in cabinets, that there are two things going on together,--a main plot and an under-plot; and he that understands only one of them will, in all probability, be the dupe of both. A mistress may rule a monarch, but some obscure favorite may rule the mistress.

Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.