People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.

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

I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others

A great deal of the furniture of ancient tyranny is torn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion.

Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.