Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.

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.

Those who worship gold in a world so corrupt as this we live in have at least one thing to plead in defense of their idolatry--the power of their idol. It is true that, like other idols, it can neither move, see, hear, feel, nor understand; but, unlike other idols, it has often communicated all these powers to those who had them not, and annihilated them in those who had. This idol can boast of two peculiarities; it is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.

There can be no Christianity where there is no charity

Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.

There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.