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

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

War is the matter which fills all history; and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.

The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.

There is a time when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor obtain protection.

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.