A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world.

A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.

Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

The yielding of the weak is the concession to fear.

I dread our own power, and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded... We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing, and hitherto unheard-of-power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin.

Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.