The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed; but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.

The morality of an action depends on the motive from which we act. If I fling half a crown to a beggar with intention to break his head and he picks it up and buy victuals with it, the physical effect is good. But with respect to me the action is very wrong.

No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.

Most men are unwilling to be taught.

Pointed axioms and acute replies fly loose about the world, and are assigned successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are