I have pushed virtue to outright brutality.

Being brutally honest is no virtue. It is still brutality. Being tactfully honest is one of the more noble skills few genuinely learn.

Hell, covering all with its gloomy vapors, has cast shadows on even the holiest eyes.

A noble heart cannot suspect in others the pettiness and malice that it has never felt.

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it with reluctance.

On the throne, one has many worries; and remorse is the one that weighs the least.