Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer.

It is with nations as with individuals, those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other.

Life often presents us with a choice of evils, rather than of goods.

Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.

Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.