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.

All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations.

The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little.

Parliament is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purpose, not local prejudices ought to guide but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.

Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature.