In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.

There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.

Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.

All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.

The ends of scientific classification are best answered, when the objects are formed into groups respecting which a greater number of general propositions can be made, and those propositions more important, than could be made respecting any other groups into which the same things could be distributed. ... A classification thus formed is properly scientific or philosophical, and is commonly called a Natural, in contradistinction to a Technical or Artificial, classification or arrangement.

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.