The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the many, honored by the few; Nothing to court in Church, or World, or State, But inwardly in secret to be great.

In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.

Most long lives resemble those threads of gossamer, the nearest approach to nothing unmeaningly prolonged, scarce visible pathways of some worm from his cradle to his grave.

In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past.

Love lives on, and hath a power to bless when they who loved are hidden in the grave.

Where Church and State are habitually associated, it is natural that minds, even of a high order, should unconsciously come to regard religion as only a subtler mode of police.

Idleness induces caprice.