Admiration is one of the most bewitching, enthusiastic passions of the mind; and every common moralist knows that it arises from novelty and surprise, the inseparable attendants of imposture.

Short isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient Wisdom delighted to convey its precepts, for the regulation of life and manners.

The Egyptians, by the concurrent testimony of antiquity, were among the first who taught that the soul was immortal.

A lie has no legs, and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far and wide.

Reason is the test of ridicule, not ridicule the test of truth.

Without enthusiasm, the adventurer could never kindle that fire in his followers which is so necessary to consolidate their mutual interests; for no one can heartily deceive numbers who is not first of all deceived himself.

High birth is a thing which I never knew any one to disparage except those who had it not; and I never knew any one to make a boast of it who had anything else to be proud of.