There is a holy love and a holy rage, and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues; and the best of us are better when roused.

Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash--for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present.

It is an easy and vulgar thing to please the mob, and no very arduous task to astonish them.

Gaming is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality.

There are some men who are fortune's favorites, and who, like cats, light forever on their legs.

The most notorious swindler has not assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own. She calls herself patriotism, when at the same time she is rejoicing at just as much calamity to her native country as will introduce herself into power, and expel her rivals.

Vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that men suffer more to be lost than to be saved.