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

When men struggle for the single life God has given them ... even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the wood.

How easy it is for generous sentiments, high courtesy, and chivalrous courage to lose their influence beneath the chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior to policy.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

The air, the water and the ground are free gifts to man and no one has the power to portion them out in parcels. Man must drink and breathe and walk and therefore each man has a right to his share of each.

No one, who is familiar with the bustle and activity of an American commercial town, would recognise, in the repose which now reigns in the ancient mart of Rhode Island, a place that, in its day, has been ranked amongst the most important ports along the whole line of our extended coast.

The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority.