"Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind"
"By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation"
"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint"
"But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever"
"Beauty is the promise of happiness"
"Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty"
"Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny"
"Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones"
"Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist"
"Ambition can creep as well as soar"
"All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice"
"All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter"
"A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation"
"A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors"
"A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman"
"In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature"
"You can never plan the future by the past"
"It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact"
"There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations"
"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors"
"Our patience will achieve more than our force"
"Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing"
"Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government"
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion"
"It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare"
"Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants"
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle"
"The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time"
