Nine tenths of modern science is in this respect the same: it is the produce of men whom their contemporaries thought dreamers - who were laughed at for caring for what did not concern them - who, as the proverb went, 'walked into a well from looking at the stars' - who were believed to be useless, if anyone could be such.

Stupidity is nature's favorite resource for preserving consistency of opinion.

The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.

The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.

The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm.

The best security for people's doing their duty is that they should not know anything else to do.