Never write down your speeches beforehand; if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.

Arbitrary power has seldom... been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step.

Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.

Unlike my subject will I frame my song, It shall be witty and it shan't be long.

The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.

Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.