Quote collection
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"Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper."
"At length weariness succeeds to labor, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments without any desire of new conquests or excursions. This is the age of recollection and narrative; the opinions are settled, and the avenues of apprehension shut against any new intelligence; the days that are to follow must pass in the inculcation of precepts already collected, and assertion of tenets already received; nothing is henceforward so odious as opposition, so insolent as doubt, or so dangerous as novelty."
"Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt."
"The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and the dread of poverty."
"I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober."
"The maxim of Cleobulus, "Mediocrity is best," has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits."
"When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever."
"The uncertainty of death is, in effect, the great support of the whole system of life."
"The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die."
"It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad."
"Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest."
"As to the Christian religion, besides the strong evidence which we have for it, there is a balance in its favor from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias on the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel, and came to be a very firm believer."
"Whatever advantage we snatch beyond a certain portion allotted us by at nature, is like money spent before it is due, which, at the time of regular payment, will be missed and regretted."
"In proportion as our cares are employed upon the future, they are abstracted from the present, from the only time which we can call our own, and of which, if we neglect the apparent duties to make provision against visionary attacks, we shall certainly counteract our own purpose."
"Riches, perhaps, do not so often produce crimes as incite accusers."
"Riches are of no value in themselves; their use is discovered only in that which they procure."
"Men who could willingly resign the luxuries and sensual pleasures of a large fortune cannot consent to live without the grandeur and the homage."
"Resentment gratifies him who intended an injury, and pains him unjustly who did not intend it."
"The duties of religion, sincerely and regularly performed, will always be sufficient to exalt the meanest and to exercise the highest understanding."
"The business of life is to go forward; he who sees evil in prospect meets it in his way, and he who catches it by retrospection turns back to find it. That which is feared may sometimes be avoided, but that which is regretted to-day may be regretted again to-morrow."