The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Lawyers must pry into the recesses of the human heart, and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discover the abstract reason of all laws.

Our liberty cannot be taken away unless the people are themselves accomplices.

History is philosophy teaching by example and also by warning.

A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship.

The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out.

Cunning pays no regard to virtue, and is but the low mimic of reason.