Shame and its consequent degradation follow the loss of our own good opinion rather than the esteem of others.

Too many yield in the perpetual conflict between temptation to gratify the coarser appetites and aspiration for the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Voices unheard by those around us whisper "Don't," but too often self-respect is lost, the will lies prostrate, and the debauch goes on.

Such battles must be fought by all; be ours the victory born of self-control, aided by that Heaven which always helps him who prays while putting his own shoulder to the wheel.
No man had a better heart or more thoroughly hated oppression than Edmund Burke.

He possessed neither experience in affairs, nor a tranquil judgment, nor the rule over his own spirit, so that his genius, under the impulse of his bewildering passions, wrought much evil to his country and to Europe, even while he rendered noble service to the cause of commercial freedom, to Ireland, and to America.
Burns could not resist the temptation to utter his clever sarcasms at another's expense, and one of his biographers has said that he made a hundred enemies for every ten jokes he made.