War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.

Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash--for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present.

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

You cannot separate charity and religion.

If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.

I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.

The blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale.