English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts.

Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

Where nature is sovereign, there is no need of austerity and self-denial.

Justice without wisdom is impossible.

The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of a great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower.

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

A single seed of fact will produce in a season or two a harvest of calumnies; but sensible men will pay no attention to them.