The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice.

Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it.

The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.

Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength.

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.