Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.

If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.

Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.

It is an awful, an appalling thought, that we may be, this moment and every moment, in the presence of malignant spirits.

Women never reason, or, if they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises; and they always poke the fire from the top.

It is a remarkable circumstance in reference to cunning persons that they are often deficient not only in comprehensive, far-sighted wisdom, but even in prudent, cautious circumspection.

Falsehood, like the dry-rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.