For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other; and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity.

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible; the latter on small ones and pleasing; we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other, we are flattered, into compliance.

He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.