I think it indisputable that the distance between the intellectual faculties of different men is greater than that between the same faculties in some men and some other animals.

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship.

Cunning pays no regard to virtue, and is but the low mimic of reason.

As well as might we say that a ship is built, loaded and manned for the sake of any particular pilot, instead of acknowledging that the pilot is made for the sake of the ship, her lading, and her crew, who are always the owners in the political vessel; as to say that kingdoms were instituted for kings, not kings for kingdoms.

God himself, with reverence be it spoken, is not an absolute but a limited monarch, limited by the rule which infinite wisdom prescribes to infinite power.

The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out.