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.

Books are becoming everything to me. If I had at this moment any choice in life, I would bury myself in one of those immense libraries...and never pass a waking hour without a book before me.

History begins in novel and ends in essay.

Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things.

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.

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

Reform, that we may preserve.