We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.

Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.

It is sufficiently humiliating to our nature to reflect that our knowledge is but as she rivulet, our ignorance as the sea. On points of the highest interest, the moment we quit the light of revelation we shall find that Platonism itself is intimately connected with Pyrrhonism, and the deepest inquiry with the darkest doubt.

Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun, and the two are never far apart.

Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.

It has been well observed that the tongue discovers the state of the mind no less than that of the body; but in either case, before the philosopher or the physician can judge, the patient must open his mouth.