Even Holland and Spain have been positively, though not relatively, advancing.

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.

What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely and universally true? We know of only one,--and that is not only true, but identical,--that men always act from self-interest.

All the walks of literature are infested with mendicants for fame, who attempt to excite our interest by exhibiting all the distortions of their intellects and stripping the covering from all the putrid sores of their feelings.

The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.