One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.

Just as there are polysyllabic words that say very little, so there are also monosyllabic words of infinite meaning.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people's attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.

Many intelligent people, when about to write . . . , force on their minds a certain notion about style, just as they screw up their faces when they sit for their portraits.

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.