It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.

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

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.

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

He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.

Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.

The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.