In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.

Invisible things are the only realities; invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.

Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.

No maxim can be more pernicious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be able to bear.

There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.

The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.