A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed respecting a question: all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate; but speak he must. And if he is a man of ability, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully.

The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.

No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all intercourse of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature.

A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read.

Language is the machine of the poet.

Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess, and act up to all that they believe!

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.