A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.

Mystery is not profoundness.

From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil; as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb which says that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil.

Some men are very entertaining for a first interview, but after that they are exhausted, and run out; on a second meeting we shall find them flat and monotonous; like hand-organs, we have heard all their tunes.

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

So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved.

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