In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.

What we opprobriously call stupidity, though not an enlivening quality in common society, is nature's favorite resource for preserving steadiness of conduct and consistency of opinion.

To a great experience one thing is essential, an experiencing nature.

The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.

All people are most credulous when they are most happy.

But of all nations in the world the English are perhaps the least a nation of pure philosophers.

A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.