It is in the relaxation of security; it is in the expansion of prosperity; it is in the hour of dilatation of the heart, and of its softening into festivity and pleasure, that the real character of men is discerned.

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

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.

The great Error of our Nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be satisfied with any reasonable Acquirement; not to compound with our Condition; but to lose all we have gained by an insatiable Pursuit after more.

Fraud is the ready minister of injustice.