Indifference must be a crime in us, to be ranked but one degree below treachery; for deserting the commonwealth is next to betraying it.

The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out.

Cunning pays no regard to virtue, and is but the low mimic of reason.

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

I think it indisputable that the distance between the intellectual faculties of different men is greater than that between the same faculties in some men and some other animals.

No religion ever appeared in the world whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind. It makes right reason a law in every possible definition of the word. And therefore, even supposing it to have been purely a human invention, it had been the most amiable and the most useful invention that was ever imposed on mankind for their good.

It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.