Rules of property ought to be generally known, and not to be left upon loose notes, which rather serve to confound principles, than to confirm them.

A dose of poison can do its work but once. A bad book can go on poisoning minds for generations.

Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

I will not avoid doing what I think is right, though it should draw on me the whole artillery that falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity a deluded population can swallow.

True popularity is not the popularity which is followed after, but the popularity which follows after.

There is no entering into the secret thoughts of a man's heart.

The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe, and so everyone who breathes it becomes free. Everyone who comes to this island is entitled to the protection of English law, whatever oppression he may have suffered and whatever may be the colour of his skin.