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

It is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to approach them.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But theworks of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.