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.

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

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

Judicious books enlarge the mind and improve the heart.

Hereditary property sophisticates the mind, and the unfortunate victims to it ... swathed from their birth, seldom exert the locomotive faculty of body or mind; and, thus viewing every thing through one medium, and that a false one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness consist.

... wealth and female softness equally tend to debase mankind!

Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.