All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with experience, that all governments must frequently infringe the rules of justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to dissimulation, honesty to convenience, and humanity itself to the reigning of interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of state.

A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.

Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.

By looking into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose the game, the chase is certainly of service.

Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.