Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat.

We shall at all times chance upon men of recondite acquirements, but whose qualifications, from the incommunicative and inactive habits of their owners, are as utterly useless to others as though the possessors had them not.

The sceptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him will only sink him deeper in the abyss.

He that can please nobody is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please.

Insults are engendered from vulgar minds, like toadstools from a dunghill.

Mystery is not profoundness.

Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded.