Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.

In the mind of all, fiction, in the logical sense, has been the coin of necessity;—in that of poets of amusement—in that of the priest and the lawyer of mischievous immorality in the shape of mischievous ambition,—and too often both priest and lawyer have framed or made in part this instrument.

Is it possible for a man to move the earth? Yes; but he must first find out another earth to stand upon.

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.

Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure... they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.

The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.

As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends.