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.

Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.

Purity lives and derives its life solely from the Spirit of God.

Secrecy of design, when combined with rapidity of execution, like me column that guided Israel in the deserts, becomes the guardian pillar of light and fire to our friends, a cloud of overwhelming and impenetrable darkness to our enemies.

Unlike the sun, intellectual luminaries shine brightest after they set.

The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.

The victims of ennui paralyze all the grosser feelings by excess, and torpify all the finer by disuse and inactivity. Disgusted with this world, and indifferent about another, they at last lay violent hands upon themselves, and assume no small credit for the sang froid with which they meet death. But, alas! such beings can scarcely be said to die, for they have never truly lived.