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

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 an exercise of the reasoning faculties, pure mathematics is an admirable exercise, because it consists of reasoning alone and does not encumber the student with any exercise of judgment.

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.

A certain class of novels may with propriety be called fables.

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

As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.