Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.

There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues.

Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass, before they can enter into the temple of truth.

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.

Success seems to be that which forms the distinction between confidence and conceit.

Professors in every branch of the sciences prefer their own theories to truth; the reason is that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

True goodness is not without that germ of greatness that can bear with patience the mistakes of the ignorant.

Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation, because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.