Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness.

It is a fact which escapes no one, that, generally speaking, whoso is acquainted with his worth has but a little stock to cultivate acquaintance with.

Evil, once manfully fronted, ceases to be evil; there is generous battle-hope in place of dead, passive misery; the evil itself has become a kind of good.

The Christian must be consumed by the conviction of the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Let him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself.

Of a truth, men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.