It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

The grand instructor, time.

To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.

It is from this absolute indifference and tranquillity of the mind, that mathematical speculations derive some of the most considerable advantages; because there is nothing to interest the imagination; because the judgment sits free and unbiased to examine the point. All proportions, every arrangement of quantity, is alike to the understanding, because the same truths result to it from all; from greater from lesser, from equality and inequality.

This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.

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

When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.