All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects.

My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.

There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state.

I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either.

No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.

Yesterday, the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.

A taste for literature and a turn for business, united in the same person, never fails to make a great man.