The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour.

No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner.

Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.

I would recommend a free commerce both of matter and mind. I would let men enter their own churches with the same freedom as their own houses; and I would do it without a homily or graciousness or favor, for tyranny itself is to me a word less odious than toleration.

Falsehood is for a season.

Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same.

I sometimes think that the most plaintive ditty has brought a fuller joy and of longer duration to its composer that the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian.