I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

Joy and woe are woven fine.

How can a bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing?

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

Commerce is so far from being beneficial to arts, or to empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their history shows, for the above reason of individual merit being its great hatred. Empires flourish till they become commercial, and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds.