No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.

The characteristic merit of the English constitutions is, that its dignified parts are very complicated and somewhat imposing, very old and rather venerable, while its efficient part, at least when in great and critical action, is decidedly simple and modern.

Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.

No man has come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman - the powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man.

We think of Euclid as of fine ice; we admire Newton as we admire the peak of Teneriffe. Even the intensest labors, the most remote triumphs of the abstract intellect, seem to carry us into a region different from our own-to be in a terra incognita of pure reasoning, to cast a chill on human glory.

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

An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.