It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.

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

All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.

Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.

Dangers by being despised grow great.

Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.