The memory is perpetually looking back when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those repositories in animals that are filled with food, on which they may ruminate when their present pastures fail.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

It is odd to consider the connection between despotism and barbarity, and how the making one person more than man makes the rest less.

Let freedom never perish in your hands.

Nothing lies on our hands with such uneasiness as time. Wretched and thoughtless creatures! In the only place where covetousness were a virtue we turn prodigals.