The public interest requires doing today those things that men of intelligence and good will would wish, five or ten years hence, had been done.

I own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please.

When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand.

The science of constructing a commonwealth or renovating it, or reforming it, is...not to be taught a priori...That which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may rise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of things which are splendid or valuable in themselves is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur.

Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.