The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.

Perfection doesn't exist... only good attempts.

Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.

That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.

There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.

The only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison; they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken away by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave; with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world.