When a poor disconsolated drooping creature is terrified from all enjoyment,--prays without ceasing 'till his imagination is heated,--fasts and mortifies and mopes, till his body is in as bad a plight as his mind; is it a wonder, that the mechanical disturbancesof an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head, should be mistook for [the] workings [of God].

When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage - that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.

The more tickets you have in a lottery, the worse your chance. And it is the same of virtues, in the lottery of life.

Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge.

First, whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'Tis for no other cause but quietness sake.

When a poor disconsolated drooping creature is terrified from all enjoyment,--prays without ceasing 'till his imagination is heated,--fasts and mortifies and mopes, till his body is in as bad a plight as his mind; is it a wonder, that the mechanical disturbancesof an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head, should be mistook for [the] workings [of God].

There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which let penetrating eye at once into a man's soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room, --or take it up in going out of it, but something escapes, which discovers him.