If there be a pleasure on earth which angels cannot enjoy, and which they might almost envy man the possession of, it is the power of relieving distress--if there be a pain which devils might pity man for enduring, it is the death-bed reflection that we have possessed the power of doing good, but that we have abused and perverted it to purposes of ill.

Vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that men suffer more to be lost than to be saved.

Sturdy beggars can bear stout denials.

The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.

Shining outward qualities, although they may excite first-rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second-rate abilities.

Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.

Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.