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

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but in selection.

As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast—alternately tempestuous and serene—so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain.

The question is not whether you have a right to render people miserable, but whether it is not in your best interest to make them happy.

It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many.

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.