General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked.

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.

Evil succeeds when good men do nothing

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind.

Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things.

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.