Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force than the minds of a single village.

Twenty-volume folios will never make a revolution. It’s the little pocket pamphlets that are to be feared.

Slavery is also as ancient as war, and war as human nature.

Those who are absent, by its means become present; it [mail] is the consolation of life.

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

The most genuine and efficacious charity is that which greases the paws of the priests; such charity covers a multitude of sins.