History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.

Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations.

The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.