Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.

As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast—alternately tempestuous and serene—so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain.

My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

The moment that government appears at market, the principles of the market will be subverted.

A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins justice ends?

It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.