When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore.
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
Frequently exercised in my sight, to accustom themselves to me.
For they have no conception how a rational creature can be compelled, but only advised, or exhorted; because no person can disobey reason, without giving up his claim to be a rational creature.
So that, upon the whole, there must be some kind of subjection due from every man to every man, which cannot be made void by any power, pre-eminence, or authority whatsoever.
Opium is not so stupefying to many persons as an afternoon sermon.
Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions.
I desired that the Senate of Rome might appear before me in one large chamber, and a modern representative, in counterview, in another. The first seemed to be an assembly of heroes and demi-gods; the...
For instance, a crew of pirates are driven by a storm they know not whither; at length a boy discovers land from the topmast; they go on shore to rob and plunder, they see a harmless people, are enter...
When men grow virtuous in their old age they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
An excuse is a lie guarded.
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for
Judges... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud,...
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar’s child ... to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of...
I enjoyed perfect health of body, and tranquillity of mind; I did not feel the treachery or inconstancy of a friend, nor the injuries of a secret or open enemy. I had no occasion of bribing, flatteri...
And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more...
Brutes find out where their talents lie a bear will not attempt to fly.
When I am reading a book whether wise or silly it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.