He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.

Society is indeed a contract … it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.

Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle.

This barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings.

The age of chivalry is gone.—That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.

I thought ten thousand swords must have leapt from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.