Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

The only true source of politeness is consideration.

The effect of character is always to command consideration. We sport and toy and laugh with men or women who have none, but we never confide in them.

Genius is the very eye of intellect and the wing of thought; it is always in advance of its time, and is the pioneer for the generation which it precedes.

The wonder is not that the world is so easily governed, but that so small a number of persons will suffice for the purpose. There are dead weights in political and legislative bodies as in clocks, and hundreds answer as pulleys who would never do for politicians.

The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul.