Routine shortens and variety lengthens time, and it is therefore in the power of men to do something to regulate its pace. A life with many landmarks, a life which is much subdivided when those subdivisions are not of the same kind, and when new and diverse interests, impressions, and labours follow each other in swift and distinct successions, seems the most long.

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.

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.

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

The simple record of these three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the discourses of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.

The animal world being altogether external to the scheme of redemption, was regarded as beyond the range of duty, and the belief that we have any kind of obligation to its members has never been inculcated - has never, I believe, been even admitted - by Catholic theologians.

Terror is everywhere the beginning of religion.