Loveliest of women! heaven is in thy soul, Beauty and virtue shine forever round thee, Bright’ning each other! thou art all divine!
A vast space naturally raises in my thoughts the idea of an Almighty Being.
A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and should make a due discrimination between those that are and those that are not the proper objects of it.
O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good.
The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education.
Knavery is ever suspicious of knavery.
God discovers the martyr and confessor without the trial of flames and tortures, and will hereafter entitle many to the reward of actions which they had never the opportunity of performing.
Music religious heat inspires, It wakes the soul, and lifts it high, And wings it with sublime desires, And fits it to bespeak the Deity.
Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
There are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities, in an elaborate and well-written piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity.
Novelty serves us for a kind of refreshment, and takes off from that satiety we are apt to complain of in our usual and ordinary entertainments.
How is it possible for those who are men of honor in their persons, thus to become notorious liars in their party.
This party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments.
In that disputable point of persecuting men for conscience sake, I see such dreadful consequences rising, I would be as fully convinced of the truth of it, as a mathematical demonstration, before I would venture to act upon it or make it a part of my religion.
Yet then from all my grief, O Lord, Thy mercy set me free, Whilst in the confidence of pray’r My soul took hold on thee.
Adulterers, in the first stages of the church, were excommunicated forever, and unqualified all their lives for bearing a part in Christian assemblies, notwithstanding they might seek it with tears, and all the appearances of the most unfeigned repentance.
The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.
A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy.
The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome.
When a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, the best atonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the like.