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

Anger requires that the offender should not only be made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong which has been done by him.

As one may bring himself to believe almost anything he is inclined to believe, it makes all the difference whether we begin or end with the inquiry, 'What is truth?'

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

Ethical maxims are bandied about as a sort of current coin of discourse, and, being never melted down for use, those that are of base metal are never detected.

Fancy, when once brought into religion, knows not where to stop. It is like one of those fiends in old stories which any one could raise, but which, when raised, could never be kept within the magic circle.

The love of admiration leads to fraud, much more than the love of commendation; but, on the other hand, the latter is much more likely to spoil our: good actions by the substitution of an inferior motive.