“There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.”
“Nature is monstrously unjust. There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all the virtues are of no avail.”
“In the Age of Perfect Virtue, men lived among the animals and birds as members of one large family. There were no distinctions between "superior" and "inferior" to separate one man or species from another. All retained their natural Virtue and lived in a state of pure simplicity.”
“those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.”
“But there is no such thing, sir, as a ghost, and I guess the laws of Nature are not going to be suspended for the British aristocracy”
“Courage is chief among virtues. For when any virtue is challenged, it is courage alone that can restore virtue.”