This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and no.
May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.
Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasure; but if we cultivate it only for pleasure’s sake, we are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because we can never have the virtue.
Animals have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance. There is something so very dreadful in tormenting those who have never harmed us, who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.
It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.
Nothing is more common than for men to think that because they are familiar with words they understand the ideas they stand for.
When men understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless.
A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.
In this world no one rules by love; if you are but amiable, you are no hero; to be powerful, you must be strong, and to have dominion you must have a genius for organizing.
A science is not mere knowledge, it is knowledge which has undergone a process of intellectual digestion. It is the grasp of many things brought together in one, and hence is its power; for, properly speaking, it is Science that is power, not Knowledge...
Stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an elegant pastime, and a resource to the idle, but it is not education.
I toast the Pope, but I toast conscience first.
Man is emphatically self-made.
The ears of the common people are holier than the hearts of the priests.
Go down again – I dwell among the people.
Two and two only supreme and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator.
There is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labor.
The world is content with setting right the surface of things.
Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant.
We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything.