The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.

Devotion, when it does not lie under the check of reason, is apt to degenerate into enthusiasm.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.

The moral virtues, without religion are but cold, lifeless, and insipid; it is only religion which opens the mind to great conceptions, fills it with the most sublime ideas, and warms the soul with more than sensual pleasures.

Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.