Party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.

There are circumstances in which despair does not imply inactivity.

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

A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.

Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the government of mankind.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body. On the due digestion of the former depend the strength and wisdom of the one, just as vigor and health depend on the other. The wisest in council, the ablest in debate, and the most agreeable companion in the commerce of human life, is that man who has assimilated to his understanding the greatest number of facts.

The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.