Religion, like its votaries, while it exists on earth, must have a body as well as a soul. A religion purely spiritual might suit a being as pure, but men are compound animals; and the body too often lords it over the mind.

We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do; therefore never go abroad in search of your wants; if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not want, will soon want what he cannot buy.

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

Sensibility would be a good portress if she had but one hand; with her right she opens the door to pleasure, but with her left to pain.

Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.

Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, Philosophers in systems, Logicians in subtleties, and Metaphysicians in sounds. It is not in any nor in all of these. He that studies only men, will get the body of knowledge without the soul, and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.

The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest; he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.