When men have become heartily wearied of licentious anarchy, their eagerness has been proportionately great to embrace the opposite extreme of rigorous despotism.

Man, considered not merely as an organized being, but as a rational agent and a member of society, is perhaps the most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most interesting specimen of Divine wisdom that we have any knowledge of.

knowledge of our duties is the most useful part of philosophy.

The love of admiration leads to fraud, much more than the love of commendation; but, on the other hand, the latter is much more likely to spoil our: good actions by the substitution of an inferior motive.

Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.

Woman is like the reed which bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.

It may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is unobstructive: without the latter it is deceptive.