It is hard to say whether doctors of law or divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery.

Contempt is not a thing to be despised.

I do ride contend against the advantages of distrust. In the world we live in, it is but too necessary. Some of old called it the very sinews of discretion.

It is very rare, indeed, for men to be wrong in their feelings concerning public misconduct; as rare to be right in their speculations upon the cause of it. I have constantly observed that the generality of people are fifty years, at least, behind in their politics.

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.

In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.

Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.