Scandals are like dandelion seeds--they are arrow-headed, and stick where they fall, and bring forth and multiply fourfold.

Honor is an old-world thing; but it smells sweet to those in whose hand it is strong.

The art of pleasing is more based on the art of seeming pleased than people think of, and she disarmed the prejudices of her enemies by the unaffected delight she appeared to take in themselves.

Most crimes are sanctioned in some form or other when they take grand names.

There is no applause that so flatters a man as that which he wrings from unwilling throats.

The Christian religion, outwardly and even in intention humble, does, without meaning it, teach man to regard himself as the most important of all created things. Man surveys the starry heavens and hears with his ears of the plurality of worlds; yet his religion bids him believe that his alone out of these innumerable spheres is the object of his master's love and sacrifice.

Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.