Nothing so effectually deadens the taste of the sublime as that which is light and radiant.

Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure - but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico, or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature.

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom.

There are cases in which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposed upon. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions than they would be by the perfidy of others.

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

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