Half-knowledge is worse than ignorance.

The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally.

None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.

Beards in olden times, were the emblems of wisdom and piety.

To be a really good historian is perhaps the rarest of intellectual distinctions.

Everybody's business is nobody's business.

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.