Flattery labors under the odious charge of servility.

It is found by experience that admirable laws and right precedents among the good have their origin in the misdeeds of others.

Every great example of punishment has in it some injustice, but the suffering individual is compensated by the public good.

The sciences throw an inexpressible grace over our compositions, even where they are not immediately concerned; as their effects are discernible where we least expect to find them.

There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive.

This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.

Liberty is given by nature even to mute animals.