All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil.

The law of England has established trial by judge and jury in the conviction that it is the mode best calculated to ascertain the truth.

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.

It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual

Among the several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovernment, there is none more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion than the word Order.

All poetry is misrepresentation.

Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it.