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.

The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society's most basic values.

It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.

Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.

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 company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.