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?

It by no means follows, that because two men utter the same words, they have precisely the same idea which they mean to express: language is inadequate to the variety of ideas which are conceived by different minds, and which, could they be expressed, would produce a new variety of characteristic differences between man and man.

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

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

Genius always looks forward, and not only sees what is, but what necessarily will be.

Pleasure is the business of the young, business the pleasure of the old.

Habit is the cement of society, the comfort of life, and, alas! The root of error.