Truth from the mouth of an honest man and severity from a good-natured man have a double effect.

Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a god-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart than revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone.

Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.

Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust. Hatred alone is immortal.

We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues.

Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.