Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets.

It is easier taking the beaten path than making our way over bogs and precipices. The great difficulty in philosophy is to come to every question with a mind fresh and unshackled by former theories, though strengthened by exercise and information.

Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for - they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?

A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.

He who is as faithful to his principles as he is to himself is the true partisan.

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

The wretched are in this respect fortunate, that they have the strongest yearning after happiness; and to desire is in some sense to enjoy.