The merchants will manage [commerce] the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves.

Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes.

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt.

Where everyman is participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year but everyday, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.

I do not pretend that language is science. It isan instrument for the attainment of science.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.