The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.

The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.

The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little.

Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the government of mankind.

A jealous lover lights his torch from the firebrand of the fiend.

An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.