At boarding schools of every description, the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the senior, vice.

What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory.

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.

The most perfect education ... is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent.

Executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides, the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deterred anyone from the commission of a crime, because in committing it the mind is roused to activity about present circumstances.

In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain subsistence by practicing on the credulity of women.

... we never do any thing well, unless we love it for its own sake.