When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be.

I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.

It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation.