We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.

Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

Customs will often outlive the remembrance of their origin.

When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.

It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all.

It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action; it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.