Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on almost what subject he may.

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who thinks differently from him.

Immoderate power, like other intemperance, leaves the progeny weaker and weaker, until nature as in compassion covers it with her mantle and it is seen no more.

Many laws as certainly make men bad, as bad men make many laws.

We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone.

As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious.