Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.

Men are apt to mistake, or at least to seem to mistake, their own talents, in hopes, perhaps, of misleading others to allow them that which they are conscious they do not possess. Thus lord Hardwicke valued himself more upon being a great minister of state, which he certainly was not, than upon being a great magistrate, which he certainly was.

He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

In nature the most violent passions are silent; in tragedy they must speak and speak with dignity too.

I am in the pitiable situation of feeling all the force of temptation without having the strength to succumb to it.

In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.