It is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.

Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.

As a madman is apt to think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is apt to borrow a little from the madman.

...a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what he did before with less.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

In sovereignty there are no gradations.

The number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and waste their lives in researches of no importance.