It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance of original justice.

The march of the human mind is slow.

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.

The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who belong to them.

He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.