If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.

The further we advance in knowledge, the more simplicity shall we discover in those primary rules that regulate all the apparently endless, complicated, and multiform operations of the Godhead.

Extemporaneous and oral harangues will always have this advantage over those that are read from a in manuscript: every burst of eloquence or spark of genius they may contain, however studied they may have been beforehand, will appear to the audience to be the effect of the sudden inspiration of talent.

Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.

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.

Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.

Metaphysicians have been learning their lessons for the last four thousand years, and it is high time that they should now begin to teach us something. Can any of the tribe inform us why all the operations of the mind are carried on with undiminished strength and activity in dreams, except the judgment, which alone is suspended and dormant?