Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.

It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions; on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor.

Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the government of mankind.

The method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best.

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.

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

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.