Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty. Men who have practiced tortures on animals without pity, relating them without shame, how can they still hold their heads among human beings?

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.

He who is extravagant will quickly become poor; and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.

There are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in a time of general venality, to lead a life of virtue and reason in the midst of sensualists, is a proof of a mind intent on nobler things than the praise or blame of men, of a soul fixed in the contemplation of the highest good, and superiour to the tyranny of custom and example.

Was ever poet so trusted before?

Prejudice is a great time-saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts. Prejudice not being founded on reason cannot be removed by argument.