If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.

The public is a bad guesser.

A promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the numbers to whom it is made.

Fierce sectarianism breeds fierce latitudinarianism.

The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted.

There is first the literature of KNOWLEDGE, and secondly, the literature of POWER. The function of the first is -- to teach; the function of the second is -- to move.

It is an impressive truth that sometimes in the very lowest forms of duty, less than which would rank a man as a villain, there is, nevertheless the sublimest ascent of self-sacrifice. To do less would class you as an object of eternal scorn, to do so much presumes the grandeur of heroism.