If atoms do, by chance, happen to combine themselves into so many shapes, why have they never combined together to form a house or a slipper? By the same token, why do we not believe that if innumerable letters of the Greek alphabet were poured all over the market-place they would eventually happen to form the text of the Iliad?

Fear sometimes adds wings to the heels, and sometimes nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving.

What a wonderful thing it is that drop of seed, from which we are produced, bears in itself the impressions, not only of the bodily shape, but of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers!

A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself.

To understand via the heart is not to understand.

Disappointment and feebleness imprint upon us a cowardly and valetudinarian virtue.

As great enmities spring from great friendships, and mortal distempers from vigorous health, so do the most surprising and the wildest frenzies from the high and lively agitations of our souls.