Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.

If martyrdom is now on the decline, it is not because martyrs are less zealous, but because martyr-mongers are more wise. The light of intellect has put out the fire of persecution, as other fires are observed to smoulder before the light of the same.

No metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful.

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

If you want enemies, excel others; if you want friends, let others excel you.

Expect not praise without envy until you are dead.