The incentive to ambition is the love of power.
Truth from the mouth of an honest man and severity from a good-natured man have a double effect.
We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves.
Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.
A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common.
When one can do better than everyone else in the same walk, one does not make any very painful exertions to outdo oneself. The progress of improvement ceases nearly at the point where competition ends.