The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.

Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.

As to precedents, to be sure they will increase in course of time; but the more precedents there are, the less occasion is there for law; that is to say, the less occasion is there for investigating principles.

It is certain that success naturally confirms in us a favourable opinion of our own abilities. Scarce any man is willing to allot to accident, friendship, and a thousand causes, which concur in every event without human contrivance or interposition, the part which they may justly claim in his advancement. We rate ourselves by our fortune rather than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly produced by imaginary merit.

A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician.

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.

See nations slowly wise, and meanly just, to buried merit raise the tardy bust.