Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and do the least work.

We must be careful how we flatter fools too little, or wise men too much, for the flatterer must act the very reverse of the physician, and administer the strongest dose only to the weakest patient.

There are too many who reverse both the principles and the practice of the Apostles; they become all things to all men, not to serve others, but themselves; and they try all things only to hold fast that which is bad.

Self-denial is often the sacrifice of one sort of self-love for another.

In answering an opponent, arrange your ideas, but not your words.

Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another; that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it.

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.