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.

Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting.

All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.

Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.