Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.
Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told their duty.
To innovate is not to reform.
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.
The tribunal of conscience exists independent of edicts and decrees.
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.