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

Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause without obtaining it, than obtain without deserving it. If it follow them it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it.

Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.

Custom looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come.

Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

There are only two things in which the false professors of all religions have agreed--to persecute all other sects and to plunder their own.

A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.