There are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.

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.

Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.

Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.

Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.

The number of objects we see from living in a large city amuses the mind like a perpetual raree-show, without supplying it with any ideas.

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.