For my part, I am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best; since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew.

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.

If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.

Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.

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

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