Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

He who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; and he who profits by a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior standing he unites with.

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?

Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.

Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the character of the age.

Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity.

Good order is the foundation of all things.