Property is desirable as the ground work of moral independence, as a means of improving the faculties, and of doing good to others, and as the agent in all that distinguishes the civilized man from the savage.

Advice is not a gift, but a debt that the old owe to the young.

Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark?

On the human imagination, events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much, is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents, soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.

Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.

The ability to discriminate between that which is true and that which is false is one of the last attainments of the human mind.

Principles . . . become modified in practice, by facts.