Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business: and gives in the long run a net result of zero.

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better, Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

Man makes circumstances, and spiritually as well as economically, is the artificer of his own fortune.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

Skepticism . . . is not intellectual only it is moral also, a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul.

A man's religion consists, not of the many things he is in doubt of and tries to believe, but of the few he is assured of and has no need of effort for believing.

Evil and good are everywhere, like shadow and substance; inseparable (for men) yet not hostile, only opposed.