Not in books only, nor yet in oral discourse, but often also in words there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination laid up, from which lessons of infinite worth may be derived.

The relief that is afforded to mere want, as want, tends to increase that want.

When men have become heartily wearied of licentious anarchy, their eagerness has been proportionately great to embrace the opposite extreme of rigorous despotism.

Falsehood is difficult to be maintained. When the materials of a building are solid blocks of stone, very rude architecture will suffice; but a structure of rotten materials needs the most careful adjustment to make it stand at all.

knowledge of our duties is the most useful part of philosophy.

Unless people can be kept in the dark, it is best for those who love the truth to give them the full light.

Man, considered not merely as an organized being, but as a rational agent and a member of society, is perhaps the most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most interesting specimen of Divine wisdom that we have any knowledge of.