I persist on praising not the life I lead, but that which I ought to lead. I follow it at a mighty distance, crawling.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
No crime has been without a precedent.
While crime is punished it yet increases.
No one can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.
A dwarf can stand on a mountain, he’s no taller.
How great would be our peril if our slaves began to number us!
The mind is never right but when it is at peace within itself; the soul is in heaven even while it is in the flesh, if it be purged of its natural corruptions, and taken up with divine thoughts, and contemplations.
The man who can be compelled knows not how to die.
Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.
Many men provoke others to overreach them by excessive suspicion; their extraordinary distrust in some sort justifies the deceit.
Hardly a man will you find who could live with his door open.
Trifling trouble find utterance; deeply felt pangs are silent.
Truth will never be tedious unto him that travelleth in the secrets of nature; there is nothing but falsehood that glutteth us.
The most imperious masters over their own servants are at the same time the most abject slaves to the servants of others.
He that by harshness of nature rules his family with an iron hand is as truly a tyrant as he who misgoverns a nation.
If you are surprised at the number of our maladies, count our cooks.
No man is free who is a slave to the flesh.
Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures.
It’s a vice to trust all, and equally a vice to trust none.