In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

We hardly know an instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.

The Orientals have another word for accident; it is "kismet,"--fate.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

The English Bible - a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.