A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.

A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.

Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.

Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.