There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.

Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better.

Conscience and covetousness are never to be reconciled; like fire and water they always destroy each other, according to the predominancy of the element.

A man that loves to be peevish and paramount, and to play the sovereign at every turn, does but blast the blessings of life, and swagger away his own enjoyments; and not to enlarge upon not folly, not to mention the injustice of such a behavior, it is always the sign of a little, unbenevolent temper. It is disease and discredit all over, and there is no more greatness in it, than in the swelling of a dropsy.

True courage is the result of reasoning. A brave mind is always impregnable. Resolution lies more in the head than in the veins, and a just sense of honor and of infamy, of duty and of religion, will carry us farther than all the force of mechanism.

Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.

Remorse of conscience is like an old wound; a man is in no condition to fight under such circumstances. The pain abates his vigor and takes up too much of his attention.