To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism; had we never sinned we should have had no conscience. Were defeat unknown, neither would victory be celebrated by songs of triumph.

For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

A thinking man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have; every time such an one announces himself, I doubt not there runs a shudder through the nether empire; and new emissaries are trained with new tactics, to, if possible, entrap and hoodwink and handcuff him.

The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows. The greatest of faults, I should say is to be conscious of none.

It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.

These Arabs, the man Mahomet, and that one century, - is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what proves explosive powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Granada! I said, the Great man was always as lightning out of Heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they too would flame.