To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

The people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement.

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

Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind.

The only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar minds - success.

Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.