Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company-I mean hell.

Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.

[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

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.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Did you ever see a portrait of a great man without perceiving strong traits of pain and anxiety?

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. What a Utopia! What a paradise this region would be.