“Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt
“Learning is pedantry, wit, impertinence, virtue itself looked like weakness, and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice
“A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, and his next to escape the censures of the world
“It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only
“To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization
“No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays
“Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis
“Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum
“Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act in the living present! Heart within and God overhead
“Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.
“It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.
“It is a greater work to educate a child, in the true and larger sense of the word, than to rule a state
“Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem
“It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late