It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.

Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.

The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.

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

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