Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.

It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly.

Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order.

Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.

I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.

Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the character of the age.