Man is said to be a rational creature; but should it not rather be said, that man is a creature capable of being rational, as we say a parrot is a creature capable of speech?

Two men are equally free from the rage of ambition; are they therefore equal in merit? Perhaps not; one may be above ambition, the other below it.

Men often prove the violence of their own prejudices, even by the violence with which they attack the prejudices of other people.

If nature did not take delight in blood, She would have made more easy ways to good.

Every character is in some respects uniform, and in others inconsistent; and it is only by the study both of the uniformity and inconsistency, and a comparison of them with each other, that the knowledge of man is acquired.

Politics is the food of sense exposed to the hunger of folly.

It would be doing cunning too much honor to call it an inferior species of true discernment.