What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideas of pleasure; for he who has but a moment of pleasure is not a happy man, in like manner that a moment of grief constitutes not a miserable one.

Common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence.

We are going to a new world... and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.

Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.

It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.

There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them.

It has taken seas of blood to drown the idol of despotism, but the English do not think they bought their laws too dearly.