Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea. - Samuel Johnson

It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. ... Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

Better to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.