Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.

The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob.

The difference of race is one of the reasons why I fear war may always exist; because race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance.

Amusement to an observing mind is study.

I look upon parliamentary government as the noblest government in the world, and certainly one most suited to England. But without the discipline of political connection, animated by the principle of private honor, I feel certain that a popular assembly would sink before the power or the corruption of a minister.

Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

The test of political institutions is the condition of the country whose future they regulate.