Superstition is not, as has been defined, an excess of religious feeling, but a misdirection of it, an exhausting of it on vanities of man's devising.

In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed, we see most dimly the objects which are close around us.

All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.

Great affectation and great absence of it are at first sight very similar.

It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.

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.

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.