Almost all Europe, for many centuries, was inundated with blood, which was shed at the direct instigation or with the full approval of the ecclesiastical authorities.

Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which the bark of human happiness is most often wrecked.

There are times in the lives of most of us, when we would have given all the world to be as we were but yesterday, though that yesterday had passed over us unappreciated and unenjoyed.

The simple record of these three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the discourses of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.

Passions weaken, but habits strengthen, with age, and it is the great task of youth to set the current of habit and to form the tastes which are most productive of happiness in life.

The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations.

In proportion to its power, Protestantism has been as persecuting as Catholicism.

The contraction of theological influence has been at once the best measure, and the essential condition of intellectual advance.

One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either intellect or fortune.

The Augustinian doctrine of the damnation of unbaptized infants and the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation . . . surpass in atrocity any tenets that have ever been admitted into any pagan creed.

Whenever the clergy were at the elbow of the civil arm, no matter whether they were Catholic or Protestant, persecution was the result.

A kiss is the only thing you can throw at someone without being held criminally responsible.

Valek coalesced from the shadows and wrapped me in his long lean arms. I soaked in his musky smell, listening to his heart beat. Strong and steady. No indication that he had been sneaking around.

If you don't trust the pilot, don't go.

There are people who do De Niro and Walken impersonations.

All human beings have a great agency for being part of a team.

You think everything can be magically cured with vitamins?” “Everything but us.

Love and fear represent two different lenses through which to view the world. Which I choose to use will determine what I think I see.

She smiles at him, too young to know him for a stranger, and too innocent yet to care.

To capture the pawn, threaten the queen.

Do the job first. Worry about the clearance later.