It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little.

The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of his wisdom who made it.

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

He was not merely a chip off the old block, but the old block itself.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.