I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.

Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.

Hereditary right should be kept sacred, not from any inalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors.

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.

What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.

Great abilities, when employed as God directs, do but make the owners of them greater and more painful servants to their neighbors.