The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.

Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.

Some, it seems to me, elect their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick makes the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler.

We have built for this world a family mansion, and the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.

Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you to let you alone.