The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to ranking spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness.

The devil was a great loss in the preternatural world. He was always something to fear and to hate; he supplied the antagonist powers of the imagination, and the arch of true religion hardly stands firm without him.

Common sense, to most people, is nothing more than their own opinions.

It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play.

A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.

It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.

A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.