Long customs are not easily broken: he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labours in vain: and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves?

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.

If the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Life is surely given us for higher purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away, and to learn what is of no value but because it has been forgotten.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility.

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.