If all seconds were as averse to duels as their principals, very little blood would be shed in that way.

If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists--and I am inclined to think it is so--it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool.

Professors in every branch of the sciences, prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.

The sceptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him will only sink him deeper in the abyss.

The highest knowledge can be nothing more than the shortest and clearest road to truth; all the rest is pretension, not performance, mere verbiage and grandiloquence, from which we can learn nothing.

Hannibal knew better how to conquer than how to profit by the conquest; and Napoleon was more skilful in taking positions than in maintaining them. As to reverses, no general cart presume to say that he may not be defeated; but he can, and ought to say, that he will not be surprised.