The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their professions.
—Junius
Topics: Integrity
He that can only boast of a distinguished lineage, boasts of that which does not belong to himself; but he that lives worthily of it is always held in the highest honor.
—Junius
Topics: Ancestry
Guilt alone, like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mood, fills the light air with visionary terrors, and shapeless forms of fear.
—Junius
Topics: Guilt
An obstinate, ungovernable self-sufficiency plainly points out to us that state of imperfect maturity at which the graceful levity of youth is lost and the solidity of experience not yet acquired.
—Junius
A thorough and mature insensibility is rarely to be acquired but by a steady perseverance in infamy.
—Junius
It is an impudent kind of sorcery to attempt to blind us with the smoke, without convincing us that the fire has existed.
—Junius
Gratuitous violence in argument betrays a conscious weakness of the cause, and is usually a signal of despair.
—Junius
When once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine does but confirm him in his faith.
—Junius
Topics: Persuasion
I hold myself indebted to any one from whose enlightened understanding another ray of knowledge communicates to mine.—Realty to inform the mind is to correct and enlarge the heart.
—Junius
Topics: Understanding
It is the eternal truth in the political as well as the mystical body, that, where one members suffers, all the members suffer with it.
—Junius
Topics: Politicians, Politics, Sympathy
Let all your views in life be directed to a solid, however moderate, independence; without it no man can be happy, nor even honest.
—Junius
Topics: Independence
Assertion, unsupported by fact, is nugatory.—Surmise and general abuse, is however elegant language, ought not to pass for truth.
—Junius
Liberal minds are open to conviction. Liberal doctrines are capable of improvement. There are proselytes from atheism; but none from superstition.
—Junius
Topics: Superstition
How much easier it is to be generous than just! Men are sometimes bountiful who are not honest.
—Junius
Topics: Generosity
Vanity indeed is a venial error; for it usually carries its own punishment with it.
—Junius
Topics: Vanity
Guilt is a poor, helpless, dependent being. Without the alliance of able, diligent, and let me add, fortunate fraud, it is inevitably undone. If the guilty culprit be obstinately silent, it forms a deadly presumption against him; if he speaks, talking tends only to his discovery, and his very defence often furnishes the materials for his conviction.
—Junius
Topics: Guilt
The coldest bodies warm with opposition; the hardest sparkle in collision.
—Junius
Topics: Opposition
If individuals have no virtues, their vices may be of use to us.
—Junius
Topics: Vice
A generous nation is grateful even for the preservation of its rights, and willingly extends the respect due to the office of a good prince into an affection for his person.
—Junius
Topics: Popularity
It is the coward who fawns upon those above him. It is the coward who is insolent whenever he dares be so.
—Junius
Topics: Cowardice, Coward
In a great business there is nothing so fatal as cunning management.
—Junius
Topics: Cunning
After long experience of the world, I affirm, before God, that I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.
—Junius
It is a maxim received in life that, in general, we can determine more wisely for others than for ourselves. The reason of it is so clear in argument that it hardly wants the confirming of experience.
—Junius
Topics: Judgment, Wisdom
Compassion to an offender who has grossly violated the laws is, in effect, a cruelty to the peaceable subject who has observed them.
—Junius
Topics: Compassion
The lives of the best of us are spent in choosing between evils.
—Junius
Topics: Evils, Decisions
As to lawyers, their profession is supported by the indiscriminate defense of right and wrong.
—Junius
Topics: Lawyers
To attack vices in the abstract, without touching persons, may be safe fighting, but it is fighting with shadows.
—Junius
Topics: Vice
It is more than possible, that those who have neither character nor honor, may be wounded in a very tender part, their interest.
—Junius
A very honest man, and a very good understanding, may be deceived by a knave.
—Junius
Injuries may be atoned for and forgiven; but insults admit of no compensation; they degrade the mind in its own esteem, and force it to recover its level by revenge.
—Junius
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
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