They [Americans] augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.

Nothing is so rash as fear; and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly.

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.

In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered.

It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.

Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils.

It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.