Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.

We enter the world alone, we leave it alone.

The endurance of the inequalities of life by the poor is the marvel of human society.

Beautiful is old age—beautiful as the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich glorious summer. In the old man, Nature has fulfilled her work; she loads him with blessings; she fills him with the fruits of a well-spent life; and, surrounded by his children and his children's children, she rocks him softly away to a grave, to which he is followed with blessings. God forbid we should not call it beautiful.

Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere with.

To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.

Where nature is sovereign, there is no need of austerity and self-denial.