Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others.

It is in the middle classes of society that all the finest feeling, and the most amiable propensities of our nature do principally nourish and abound. For the good opinion of our fellow-men is the strongest though not the purest motive to virtue. The privations of poverty render us too cold and callous, and the privileges of property too arrogant and confidential, to feel; the first places us beneath the influence of opinion--the second, above it.

The whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other

The hate which we all bear with the most Christian patience is the hate of those who envy us.

Wars are to the body politic, what drams are to the individual. There are times when they may prevent a sudden death, but if frequently resorted to, or long persisted in, they heighten the energies only to hasten the dissolution.

Jealousy is sustained as often by pride as by affection.

There is this of good in real evils; they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary.