There are cases in which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposed upon. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions than they would be by the perfidy of others.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom.

Dangers by being despised grow great.

"War," says Machiavelli, "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans." A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature.

A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.

Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.