There are some men formed with feelings so blunt that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives.

It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.

An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others

Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.