A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.

Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority...

Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.

Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.

The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.

I saw in States' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.... Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.