Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.

The prosecution of [Warren] Hastings, though he should escape at last, must have good effect. It will alarm the servants of the Company in India, that they may not always plunder with impunity, but that there may be a retrospect; and it will show them that even bribes of diamonds to the Crown may not secure them from prosecution.

When the Prince of Piedmont [later Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia] was seven years old, his preceptor instructing him in mythology told him all the vices were enclosed in Pandora's box. "What! all!" said the Prince. "Yes, all." "No," said the Prince; "curiosity must have been without.

How posterity will laugh at us, one way or other! If half a dozen break their necks, and balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use: if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted.

Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense. A proof that it is not sense, is that cunning people never imagine that others can see through them. It is the consequence of weakness.

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.

Lawyers and rogues are vermin not easily rooted out of a rich soil.