Grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless.

Men naturally sympathize with the calamities of individuals; but they are inclined to look on a fallen party with contempt rather than with pity.

The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.

I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.

A kind of semi-Solomon, half-knowing everything, from the cedar to the hyssop.

History distinguishes what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable.

He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.