Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants--both know too much of him.

In politics, as in religion, it so happens, that we have less charity for those who believe the half of our creed, than for those that deny the whole of it; since if Servetus had been a Mohammedan, he would not have been burnt by Calvin.

No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty.

Afflictions sent by providence melt the constancy of the noble minded, but confirm the obduracy of the vile, as the same furnace that liquefies the gold, hardens the clay Charles Caleb Colton.

Charles Fox said that restorations were the most bloody of all revolutions; and he might have added that reformations are the best mode of preventing the necessity of either.

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.

The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.