Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.
The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.
True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
It is known that the taste – whatever it is – is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.
It is in the relaxation of security; it is in the expansion of prosperity; it is in the hour of dilatation of the heart, and of its softening into festivity and pleasure, that the real character of men is discerned.
Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the character of the age.
I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most exalted performances of genius which I felt in childhood from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible.
True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting.
My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
Religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.
Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue.
Prejudice renders a man’s virtue his habit, and a series of unconnected arts. Though just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.
Pleasure of every kind quickly satisfies.
The parties are the gamesters; but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end.
Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.