If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle

My History of the Jesuits is in four volumes.... This society has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations ... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.

The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, unless you have a coupon for a free lunch...or someone gives you a lunch...never mind.

To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.