Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of things which are splendid or valuable in themselves is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur.

You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time they pretend to make them the depositories of all power.

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the old.

Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.

He was not merely a chip off the old block, but the old block itself.