Fame – a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.
To vindicate the sanctity of human life by taking it is an outrage upon reason. The spectacle of a human being dangling at the end of a gallows-rope is a degradation of humanity.
Great warriors, like great earthquakes, are principally remembered for the mischief they have done.
Love delights in paradoxes. Saddest when it has most reason to be gay, sighs are the signs of its deepest joy, and silence is the expression of its yearning tenderness.
Successful love takes a load off our hearts, and puts it upon our shoulders.
Passion looks not beyond the moment of its existence. Better, it says, the kisses of love to day, than the felicities of heaven afar off.
Qualities not regulated run into their opposites. Economy before competence is meanness after it. Therefore economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.
To cultivate a garden is to walk with God.
In the assurance of strength there is strength; and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their powers.
Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere.
Ambitious princes value inherited kingdoms not so much as conquered provinces.
Ambition, in one respect, is like a singer’s voice; pitched at too high a key, it breaks and comes to nothing.
An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.
A peculiar work in any art must not be too hastily judged. New styles have to create new tastes.
It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence upon us.
The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in Heaven before unfelt.
If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.
The busiest of living agents are certain dead men’s thoughts.
The greatest events of an age are its best thoughts. Thought finds its way into action.
There is no tyrant like custom, and no freedom where its edicts are not resisted.