To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.

It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.

It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.

He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.