Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.

Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not.

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.

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.