I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one and obtained the other.

A great empire and little minds go ill together.

It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many.

When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand.

He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.

The ocean is an object of no small terror.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.