| A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false. |
| There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II. But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen. |
| Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps. |
| 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. |