Happiness is that single and glorious thing which is the very light and sun of the whole animated universe; and where she is not it were better that nothing should be.
Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants – both know too much of him.
Some men who know that they are great are so very haughty withal and insufferable that their acquaintance discover their greatness only by the tax of humility which they are obliged to pay as the price of their friendship.
There are some men who are fortune’s favorites, and who, like cats, light forever on their legs.
Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.
Unlike the sun, intellectual luminaries shine brightest after they set.
No propagation or multiplication is more rapid that that of evil, unless it be checked; no growth more certain.
A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow.
If all seconds were as averse to duels as their principals, very little blood would be shed in that way.
It is with honesty in one particular as with wealth, – those that have the thing care less about the credit of it than those who have it not. No poor man can well afford to be thought so, and the less of honesty a finished rogue possesses the less he can afford to be supposed to want it.
Honor is the most capricious in her rewards. She feeds us with air, and often pulls down our house, to build our monument.
Doubt is the vestibule of faith.
Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.
A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.
There are three kinds of power, – wealth, strength, and talent; but as old age always weakens, often destroys, the two latter, the aged are induced to cling with the greater avidity to the former.
Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation.
Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun, and the two are never far apart.
There is a holy love and a holy rage, and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues; and the best of us are better when roused.
Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.
The masses procure their opinions ready made in open market.