When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.

To reach the height of our ambition is like trying to reach the rainbow; as we advance it recedes.

Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

I cannot help concurring with the opinion that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government.

It is in the relaxation of security; it is in the expansion of prosperity; it is in the hour of dilatation of the heart, and of its softening into festivity and pleasure, that the real character of men is discerned.