To a resolute mind, wishing to do is the first step toward doing. But if we do not wish to do a thing it becomes impossible.

All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.

Mild arch of promise! on the evening sky Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray, Each in the other melting.

Beasts, birds, and insects, even to the minutest and meanest of their kind, act with the unerring providence of instinct; man, the while, who possesses a higher faculty, abuses it, and therefore goes blundering on.

Without religion the highest endowments of intellect can only render the possessor more dangerous if he be ill disposed; if well disposed, only more unhappy.

The laws are with us, and God on our side.

There are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will, for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.