Those that know the least of others think the highest of themselves.

We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit.

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise.

There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.

A house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them.

If martyrdom is now on the decline, it is not because martyrs are less zealous, but because martyr-mongers are more wise. The light of intellect has put out the fire of persecution, as other fires are observed to smoulder before the light of the same.

Were we as eloquent as angels we still would please people much more by listening rather than talking.