“Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.”

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

“Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.”

“All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them.”

“Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.”

“Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.”