A dominant religion is never ascetic.

The Saviour of mankind Himself, in whose blameless life malice could find no act to impeach, has been called in question for words spoken.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeeding generations change the fashion of their morals with the fashion of their hats and their coaches; take some other kind of wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.