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.

Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.

Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.

Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.

Good order is the foundation of all things.

I consider how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything.