In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say is there any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered by asking ourselves another; is there any harm in letting it alone?

It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.

When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.

A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition.

The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.

No men deserve the title of infidels so little as those to whom it has been usually applied; let any of those who renounce Christianity, write fairly down in a book all the absurdities that they believe instead of it, and they will find that it requires more faith to reject Christianity than to embrace it.

I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.