It is difficult for the united states to be all of equal power and extent.

Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.

In vain do we seek tranquility in the desert; temptations are always with us; our passions, represented by the demons, never let us alone: those monsters created by the heart, those illusions produced by the mind, those vain specters that are our errors and our lies always appear before us to seduce us; they attack us even in our fasting or our mortifications, in other words, in our very strength.

Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.

If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.