A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition.

It is from this absolute indifference and tranquillity of the mind, that mathematical speculations derive some of the most considerable advantages; because there is nothing to interest the imagination; because the judgment sits free and unbiased to examine the point. All proportions, every arrangement of quantity, is alike to the understanding, because the same truths result to it from all; from greater from lesser, from equality and inequality.

In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.

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.

There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.