I cannot help concurring with the opinion that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government.

The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who belong to them.

Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.

Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.

If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.

There are some men formed with feelings so blunt that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives.