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" The man who plays his part upon the theatre of life almost always maintains what may be called an artificial character. "

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" It is questionless desirable in all ordinary cases, wherever positive law is established, to restrain ourselves within the letter of that law and to allow the criminal all the benefit, if benefit to him shall result, of any evasion or escape that the law shall afford him. "

" It is one of the oldest maxims of moral prudence: Do not, by aspiring to what is impracticable, lose the opportunity of doing the good you can effect! "

" The question now afloat in the world respecting 'things as they are' is the most interesting that can be presented to the human mind. While one party pleads for reformation and change, the other extols in the warmest terms the existing constitution of society. "

" I was famous in our college for calm and impassionate discussion; for one whole summer, I rose at five and went to bed at midnight, that I might have sufficient time for theology and metaphysics. "

" Hope is in some respects a thing more brilliant, more vivifying, than fruition. What we have looked forward to with eager and earnest aspiration is never in all respects equal to the picture we had formed of it. The very uncertainty enhances the enjoyment. "

" It is indeed specially characteristic of the passion of love that it has the faculty of giving a perpetual flow to the interchange of sentiments and reflections in conversation. "

" There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination. "

" I am an enemy to revolutions. I abhor, both from temper and from the clearest judgment I am able to form, all violent convulsions in the affairs of men. "

" Extraordinary circumstances often bring along with them extraordinary strength. No man knows, till the experiment, what he is capable of effecting. "

" Superior virtue must be the fruit of superior intelligence. "

" Innocence is not virtue. Virtue demands the active employment of an ardent mind in the promotion of the general good. No man can be eminently virtuous who is not accustomed to an extensive range of reflection. "

" There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness. "

" We cannot, any of us, do all the things of which mankind stand in need; we must have fellow-labourers. "

" One of the prerogatives by which man is eminently distinguished from all other living beings inhabiting this globe of earth, consists in the gift of reason. "

" I know not how it is: there are some businesses for which dullness seems to be a qualification. "

" What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child? "

" Great changes cannot take place in the minds of generations of men without a corresponding change in their external symbols. There must be a harmony between the inner and the outward condition of human beings, and the progress of the one must keep pace with the progress of the other. "

" There is an indescribable something that ties us to life. For this purpose, it is not necessary that we should be happy. Though our life be almost without enjoyment, we do not consent to part with it. "

" In the summer of 1791, I gave up my concern in the 'New Annual Register,' the historical part of which I had written for seven years, and abdicated, I hope forever, the task of performing a literary labour, the nature of which should be dictated by anything but the promptings of my own mind. "

" Enthusiasm is always an interesting spectacle. When it expresses itself with an honest and artless eloquence, it is difficult to listen to it and not, in some degree, to catch the flame. "

" How nations and races of men are to be so governed as may be most conducive to the improvement and happiness of all is one of the most interesting questions that can be offered to our consideration. "

" The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children. "

" It is the misfortune of those who are concerned in conducting human affairs that, however pure and capacious their own conceptions may be, they must accommodate themselves to the circumstances with which they are environed and use the instruments that are within their reach. "

" Man is a being of a mixed nature; and, as there is no integrity without its flaws, so is there no man so knavish but that in some things he may be trusted. "

" The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind. "

" Sympathy is one of the principles most widely rooted in our nature: we rejoice to see ourselves reflected in another; and, perversely enough, we sometimes have a secret pleasure in seeing the sin which dwells in ourselves existing under a deformed and monstrous aspect in another. "

" How different a creature is man in society and man in solitude! "

" Men who do not contend in earnest can have little warmth and fervor in what they undertake, and are more than half prepared to betray the cause, in the vindication of which they have engaged their services. "

" The world is all alike. Those that seem better than their neighbours are only more artful. They mean the same thing, though they take a different road. "

" The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself. "