Kind words cost no more than unkind ones . . . and we may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindliness around us at so little expense. If you would fall into any extreme let it be on the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists vigor and yields to softness.

The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day's time they will have turned it into a Hell.

The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

The question is not can animals speak but can they suffer.

Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.

No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.

All government is a trust. Every branch of government is a trust, and immemorially acknowledged to be so.