At the best, sarcasms, bitter irony, scathing wit, are a sort of swordplay of the mind. You pink your adversary, and he is forthwith dead; and then you deserve to be hung for it.

The lively and mercurial are as open books, with the leaves turned down at the notable passages. Their souls sit at the windows of their eyes, seeing and to be seen.

Heaven lent you a soul, Earth will lend a grave.

Galileo called doubt the father of invention; it is certainly the pioneer.

God, we are told, looked upon the world after he had created it and pronounced it good; but ascetic pietists, in their wisdom, cast their eyes over it, and substantially pronounce it a dead failure, a miserable production, a poor concern.

Great warriors, like great earthquakes, are principally remembered for the mischief they have done.

We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.