Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.

The more secure we feel against our liability to any error to which, in fact, we are liable, the greater must be our danger of falling into it.

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.

Christianity, contrasted with the Jewish system of emblems, is truth in the sense of reality, as substance is opposed to shadows, and, contrasted with heathen mythology, is truth as opposed to falsehood.

Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.

Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object.

Geologists complain that when they want specimens of the common rocks of a country, they receive curious spars; just so, historians give us the extraordinary events and omit just what we want,--the every-day life of each particular time and country.