The origin of all science is the desire to know causes, and the origin of all false science is the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.

The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.

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.

Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.

Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable.

Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool?

We must be doing something to be happy.