A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule, must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate.

It is the fate of all things to ripen, and then to decay.

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.

Aristocracy: A combination of many powerful men, for the purpose of maintaining their own particular interests. It is consequently a concentration of all the most effective parts of a community for a given end, hence its energy, efficiency and success.

No star seemed less than what science has taught us that it is.

The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.

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