Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

He who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; and he who profits by a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior standing he unites with.

Though ugliness be the opposite of beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness; for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness for any use.

A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.