We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion.

More from Political Essays (1819)

• It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
• The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
• All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.
• Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
• Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone — but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
• Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.