A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

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

Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.

Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.

Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.