I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one and obtained the other.

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.

Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.

Equity money is dynamic and debt money is static.