Five thousand years have added no improvement to the hive of the bee, nor to the house of the beaver; but look at the habitations and the achievements of men!

Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it.

Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants--both know too much of him.

Time is the most subtle yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing is permitted to take all; nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight; and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death.

Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.

When in reading we meet with any maxim that may be of use, we should take it for our own, and make an immediate application of it, as we would of the advice of a friend whom we have purposely consulted.

Doubt is the vestibule of faith.