In civilized society external advantages make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. You may analyze this and say, What is there in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system.

I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.

Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from time to come.

The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess. Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous; yet fame, power, and riches, are only the names of relative conditions, which imply the obscurity, dependence, and poverty of greater numbers.

The dangers gather as the treasures rise.

Inquiries into the heart are not for man.