In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights, the exaltation of a few must depress the many. - Adam Ferguson

Men are to be estimated, not from what they know, but from what they are able to perform.

The attainments of the parent do not descend in the blood of his children, nor is the progress of man to be considered as a physical mutation of the species.

Theory consists in referring particular operations to the principles, or general laws, under which they are comprehended; or in referring particular effects to the causes from which they proceed.