Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.

Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.

Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them; and the disgust which they produce arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united.

Life is but short; no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry; and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.

He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.