Spain and southern Italy, in which Catholicism has most deeply implanted its roots, are even now, probably beyond all other countries in Europe, those in which inhumanity to animals is most wanton and unrebuked.

Passions weaken, but habits strengthen, with age, and it is the great task of youth to set the current of habit and to form the tastes which are most productive of happiness in life.

In proportion to its power, Protestantism has been as persecuting as Catholicism.

One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either intellect or fortune.

Whenever the clergy were at the elbow of the civil arm, no matter whether they were Catholic or Protestant, persecution was the result.

There is no possible line of conduct which has at some time and place been condemned, and which has not at some other time and place been enjoined as a duty.

Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which the bark of human happiness is most often wrecked.