All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.

Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.

It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a manner as that authority will permit.

Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.