Preachers dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.

No stile of writing is so delightful as that which is all pith, which never omits a necessary word, nor uses an unnecessary one.

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.

I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living. . . . We seem not to perceive that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independent nation is to another. . . . The earth belongs always to the living generations.

A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.

The plough is to the farmer what the wand is to the sorcerer. Its effect is really like sorcery.