There are both dull correctness and piquant carelessness; it is needless to say which will command the most readers and have the most influence.

A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.

So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved.

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

He that openly tells, his friends all that he thinks of them, must expect that they will secretly tell his enemies much that they do not think of him.

If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.

Silence is less injurious than a weak reply.