Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations.

Man is by his constitution a religious animal.

Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.

Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity.

No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.

A man is allowed sufficient freedom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly.... But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or treason may be the names given in Britain to what would be reason and truth if asserted in China.

There is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.

Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.