There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
When bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory they have no power over the substance of original justice.
You can never plan the future by the past.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
Education is the cheap defense of nations.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.
Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.
Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.