The devil was a great loss in the preternatural world. He was always something to fear and to hate; he supplied the antagonist powers of the imagination, and the arch of true religion hardly stands firm without him.

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.

Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must shew it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gainsaid.

The vices are never so well employed as in combating one another.

In what we really understand, we reason but little.

The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.

Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else.