Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.

The experience of treaties being broken with impunity provide an afflicting lesson to mankind how little dependence is to be placed on treaties which have no other sanction than the obligations of good faith; and which oppose general considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of any immediate interest and passion.

Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs

To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.

Those who do not industrialize become hewers of wood and hawkers of water

Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.