Precedents are the disgrace of legislation. They are not wanted to justify right measures, are absolutely insufficient to excuse wrong ones. They can only be useful to heralds, dancing masters, and gentlemen ushers.

Only the brave know how to forgive... a coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.

It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand.

When, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an ignorant and helpless creature shall be sacrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.

The histories of the lives and fortunes of men are full of instances of this nature,--where favorable times and lucky accidents have done for them, what wisdom or skill could not.

So much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy, and to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil.

Human nature is the same in all professions.