Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt.

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.

Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books; no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.

People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.

Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards.

Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.