Nature is not a partisan, but out of her ample treasue house she produces children in infinite variety, of which she is equally the mother, and disowns none of them.

The solitary side of our nature demands leisure for reflection upon subjects on which the dash and whirl of daily business, so long as its clouds rise thick about us, forbid the intellect to fasten itself.

Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.

Of all the evil spirits abroad at this hour in the world, insincerity is the most dangerous.

I have long been convinced that the Christian Eucharist is but a continuation of the Eleusinian mysteries. St Paul, in using the word teleiois, almost confirms this.

We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.