To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

By looking into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose the game, the chase is certainly of service.

As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast—alternately tempestuous and serene—so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But theworks of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.