Mystery is not profoundness.

There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.

That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.

Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.

It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross there is in our composition.

The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.