[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.

He that would travel for the entertainment of others should remember that the great object of remark is human life.

Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.

To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning; but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio; and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.

Pity is not natural to man. Children always are cruel. Savages are always cruel.

Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.