[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.

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

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

Reform, that we may preserve.

War is never lenient but where it is wanton; where men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge. This may be bad, but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the hands of the Potter.

All the walks of literature are infested with mendicants for fame, who attempt to excite our interest by exhibiting all the distortions of their intellects and stripping the covering from all the putrid sores of their feelings.

Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book.