We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
Category Archive: 1800
The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.
Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.
She thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.
Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!
All my time not devoted to my master’s service was spent either in prayer, or in making experiments in casting different things in moulds made of earth, in attempting to make paper, gunpowder, and many other experiments, that, although I could not perfect, yet convinced me of its practicability if I had the means.
Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.
None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours.
That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.