It is not merely cruelty that leads men to love war, it is excitement.

Man is at the bottom an animal, midway a citizen, and at the top divine. But the climate of this world is such that few ripen at the top.

Downright admonition, as a rule, is too blunt for the recipient.

Nature is a vast repository of manly enjoyments.

Men strengthen each other in their faults. Those who are alike associate together, repeat the things which all believe, defend and stimulate their common faults of disposition, and each one receives from the others a reflection of his own egotism.

None love to speak so much, when the mood of speaking comes, as they who are naturally taciturn.

Prayer is often an argument of laziness: "Lord, my temper gives me a vast deal of inconvenience, and it would be a great task for me to correct it; and wilt thou be pleased to correct it for me, that I may get along easier?" If prayer was answered under such circumstances, independent of action of natural laws, it would be paying a premium on indolence.