Natural affection is a prejudice; for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others.

[Science is] the desire to know causes.

The incentive to ambition is the love of power.

I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.

Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter, we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them.

Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.

To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said.