It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.

Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.

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

The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.

Success seems to be that which forms the distinction between confidence and conceit.

I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues; and strengthen their minds but weaken their morals.

It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.