Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

The question is not whether you have a right to render people miserable, but whether it is not in your best interest to make them happy.

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure - but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico, or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature.

There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

Nothing so effectually deadens the taste of the sublime as that which is light and radiant.

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.