Man, being not only a religious, but also a social being, requires for the promotion of his rational happiness religious institutions, which, while they give a proper direction to devotion, at the same time make a wise and profitable improvement of his social feelings.

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.

Unless we find repose within ourselves, it is vain to seek it elsewhere.

Of all the ingenious mistakes into which erring man has fallen, perhaps none have been so pernicious in their consequences, or have brought so many evils into the world, as the popular opinion that the way of the transgressor is pleasant and easy.

Experience is retrospect knowledge.

The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

True repentance also involves reform.