Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.

Peoples nurtured on freedom and self-government judge any other form of polity to be deformed and unnatural. Those who are used to monarchy do the same .

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.

Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.

Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.

Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.

Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.