Every virtue has its privilege: for example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of one condemned.

Rash actions are seldom committed in isolation. With the first rash action we always do too much. So we usually go on to commit asecond one--and then we do too little.

But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away the hero in your soul! Hold holy your highest hope!

It is so little true that martyrs offer any support to the truth of a cause that I am inclined to deny that any martyr has ever had anything to do with the truth at all.

The same relation exists between merchant and pirate, who for a long period are one and the same person: where the one function appears to them inadvisable, they exercise the other.

There is sense in hoping for recognition in a distant future only when we take it for granted that mankind will remain essentially unchanged, and that whatever is great is not for one age only but will be looked upon as great for all time.

Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.