Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.

In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.

A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.

The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture; they will find it in their natural--their destined occupation.