Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.

Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.