We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.

He that is gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion, will not feel himself quite secure, until he has also drawn his teeth.

There are three kinds of power,--wealth, strength, and talent; but as old age always weakens, often destroys, the two latter, the aged are induced to cling with the greater avidity to the former.

Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.

Sleep, the type of death, is also, like that which it typifies, restricted to the earth. It flies from hell and is excluded from heaven.

There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool; since the most absurd doctrines are not without such evidence as martyrdom can produce. A martyr, therefore, by the mere act of suffering, can prove nothing but his own faith.