Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.

The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?

Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.

I don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.

If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.