There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.

Public feeling now is apt to side with the persecuted, and our modern martyr is full as likely to be smothered with roses as with coals.

Most men are less afraid of ghosts than of facts.

Life is a crucible. We are thrown into it and tried.

Morality is but the vestibule of religion.

The essence of justice is mercy. Making a child suffer for wrong-doing is merciful to the child. There is no mercy in letting the child have its own will, plunging headlong to destruction with the bits in its mouth. There is no mercy to society nor to the criminal if the wrong is not repressed and the right vindicated. We injure the culprit who comes up to take his proper doom at the bar of justice, if we do not make him feel that he has done a wrong thing. We may deliver his body from the prison, but not at the expense of justice nor to his own injury.

Some souls are ennobled and elevated by seeming misfortunes, which then become blessings in disguise.