The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by reputation, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.

Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.

The science of legislation is like that of medicine in one respect: that it is far more easy to point out what will do harm than what will do good.

He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.