Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

To speak and act truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as meretorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty

God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.

Whenever you see want or misery or degradation in this world about you, then be sure either industry has been wanting, or industry has been in error.

The scholar is early acquainted with every department of the impossible.

The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them.

I had no companions to quarrel with, nobody to assist, and nobody to thank... the evil consequence of all this was not, however, what might perhaps have been expected, that I grew up selfish or non affectionate; but that, when affection did come, it came with a violence utterly rampant and unmanageable.