Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politics ....?
Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense; and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a loss for want of readier change.
Reviewing the day's lessons. Isn't it joyful? Friends come from far. Isn't it delightful? One has never been angry at other's misunderstanding. Isn't he a respectable man?
It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgment
The intellectual life may be kept clean and healthful, if man will live the life of nature, and not import into his mind difficulties which are none of his.
The policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a state equal to that of animals, whom nature has furnished with food, clothing, and shelter.
It is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin.