In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.

In youth, it is common to measure right and wrong by the opinion of the world, and in age, to act without any measure but interest, and to lose shame without substituting virtue.

In all political regulations, good cannot be complete, it can only be predominant.

A patriot is he whose public conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the common interest

Ignorance is mere privation by which nothing can be produced: it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction: and, without knowing why, we always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we forget.

The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances.