"The traditions that attached Greek philosophy to Egypt, the subsequent admiration for the schools of India to which Pyrrho and Anaxarchus are said to have resorted,350 the prevalence of Cynicism and Epicureanism, which agreed in inculcating indifference to political life, the complete decomposition of the popular national religions, and the incompatibility of a narrow local feeling with great knowledge and matured civilisation, were the intellectual causes of the change, and the movement of expansion received a great political stimulus when Alexander eclipsed the glories of Spartan and Athenian history by the vision of universal empire, accorded to the conquered nations the privileges of the conquerors, and created in Alexandria a great centre both of commercial intercourse and of philosophical eclecticism."

"In looking back, with our present experience, we are driven to the melancholy conclusion that, instead of diminishing the number of wars, ecclesiastical influence has actually and very seriously increased it. We may look in vain for any period since Constantine, in which the clergy, as a body, exerted themselves to repress the military spirit, or to prevent or abridge a particular war, with an energy at all comparable to that which they displayed in stimulating the fanaticism of the crusaders, in producing the atrocious massacre of the Albigenses, in embittering the religious contests that followed the Reformation."

"Nations seldom realise till too late how prominent a place a sound system of finance holds among the vital elements of national stability and well-being; how few political changes are worth purchasing by its sacrifice; how widely and seriously human happiness is affected by the downfall or the perturbation of national credit, or by excessive, injudicious, and unjust taxation."

"The stately ship is seen no more, The fragile skiff attains the shore; And while the great and wise decay, And all their trophies pass away, Some sudden thought, some careless rhyme, Still floats above the wrecks of Time."

"Whence has come thy lasting power."

"Terror is everywhere the beginning of religion."

"We are Cavaliers or Roundheads before we are Conservatives or Liberals."

"There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Caesars; but there has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled."

"She looks as if butter wou'dn't melt in her mouth."

"She's no chicken; she's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day."

"If it had been a bear it would have bit you."

"I hate nobody: I am in charity with the world."

"'Tis as cheap sitting as standing."

"I won't quarrel with my bread and butter."

"She wears her clothes, as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork."

"A penny for your thoughts."

"So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bit 'em; And so proceed ad infinitum. Thus every poet, in his kind, Is bit by him that comes behind."

"Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?"

"Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension."

"So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns."

"Hobbes clearly proves that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature."

"The sight of you is good for sore eyes."

"Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken."

"I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.)"

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers."

"Poor Nations are hungry, and rich Nations are proud, and Pride and Hunger will ever be at Variance."

"I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."

"He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders."

"And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever 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 essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."

"It is a maxim among lawyers that whatever hath been done before may be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail of directing them accordingly."

"Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion."

"The Bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking."

"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

"Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age…"

"Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping."

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."

"The two maxims of any great man at court are always to keep his countenance and never to keep his word."

"As learned commentators view In Homer more than Homer knew."

"I mean you lie—under a mistake."

"What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage."

"A nice man is a man of nasty ideas."

"The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes."

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

"ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his Army, to consider that in less than a Hundred Years they would be all Dead. Anacreon was' Choakt with a Grape-stone, and violent Joy Kills as well as violent Grief. There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy; yet Plato thought that if Virtue would appear to the World in her own native Dress, all Men would be Enamoured with her. But now since Interest governs the World, and Men neglect the Golden Mean, Jupiter himself, if he came on the Earth would be Despised, unless it were as he did to Danae in a Golden Shower. For Men nowadays Worship the Rising Sun, and not the Setting."

"Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly."

"Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of."

"The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages."

"Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent."

"No wise man ever wished to be younger."

"Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old."