The grand instructor, time.

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.

The love of lucre, though sometimes carried to a ridiculous excess, a vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all States.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.

There are circumstances in which despair does not imply inactivity.

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.