He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice should go a little further, and try to plant a virtue in its place; otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has produced weeds may be made to produce wheat with far less difficulty than it would cost to make it produce nothing.

True goodness is not without that germ of greatness that can bear with patience the mistakes of the ignorant.

Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.

War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.

Public charities and benevolent associations for the gratuitous relief of every species of distress, are peculiar to Christianity; no other system of civil or religious policy has originated them; they form its highest praise and characteristic feature.

Subtlety will sometimes give safety, no less than strength; and minuteness has sometimes escaped, where magnitude would have been crushed. The little animal that kills the boa is formidable chiefly from its insignificance, which is incompressible by the folds of its antagonist.

Total freedom from error is what none of us will allow to our neighbors; however we may be inclined to flirt a little with such spotless perfection ourselves.