-
The motives even of our best actions will not always bear examination.
-
Whatever is done by design is always overdone.
-
The law has no power over heroes.
-
When a person is found less guilty than he is suspected, he is concluded more innocent than he really is.
-
What is called liberality is often no more than the vanity of giving, of which some persons are fonder than of what they give.
-
Custom ... changes the very nature of things; and what was honorable a thousand years ago, may probably be looked upon as infamous now.
-
It is easy to be just when our own inclinations do not oppose it.
-
Politeness is sometimes a great tax upon sincerity.
-
In taking revenge upon our enemies, we are only even with them; in passing over their malice we are superior.
-
A hero in one age will be a hero in another.
-
Nothing is more common than for persons to hate those whom they have injured.
-
The silence of a man who loves to praise is a censure sufficiently severe.
-
Truth is too weak to combat prejudice.
-
Truth is not always injured by fiction.
-
It is more important to detect corruption than fiction.
-
When Actions are a Censure upon themselves, the Reciter will always be consider'd as a Satirist.
-
The life of a good man is a continual prayer.
-
There is no logic like the logic of the heart.
-
We are better deceived by having some truth told us than none.
-
No woman is envious of another's virtue who is conscious of her own.