The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages.

A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.

Without a home must the soldier go, a changeful wanderer, and can warm himself at no home-lit hearth.

A healthy nature needs no God or immortality

Virtue, though clothed in a beggar's garb, commands respect.

There are occasions when the general belief of the people, even though it be groundless, works its effect as sure as truth itself.

Egotism erects its center in itself; love places it out of itself in the axis of the universal whole. Love aims at unity, egotism at solitude. Love is the citizen ruler of a flourishing republic, egotism is a despot in a devastated creation. Egotism sows for gratitude, love for the ungrateful. Love gives, egotism lends; and love does this before the throne of judicial truth, indifferent if for the enjoyment of the following moment, or with the view to a martyr's crown--indifferent whether the reward is in this life or in the next.