As the scale of the balance must give way to the weight that presses it down, so the mind must of necessity yield to demonstration.

An innocent man, if accused, can be acquitted; a guilty man, unless accused, cannot be condemned. It is, however, more advantageous to absolve an innocent than not to prosecute a guilty man.

Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.

I prefer the wisdom of the uneducated to the folly of the loquacious.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.

It is easy to distinguish between the joking that reflects good breeding and that which is coarse-the one, if aired at an apposite moment of mental relaxation, is becoming in the most serious of men, whereas the other is unworthy of any free person, if the content is indecent or the expression obscene.