Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.

To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.

Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice.

Man is by his constitution a religious animal.

I do not know how to wish success to those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part of our Empire. Still less do I wish success to injustice, oppression and absurdity.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.

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