The perpetual stream of human nature is formed into ever-changing shallows, eddies, falls and pools by the land over which it passes. Perhaps the only real value of history lies in considering this endlessly varied play between the essence and the accidents.

Everything is change; and you cannot step twice into the same river.

In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men.

How can people trust the harvest, unless they see it sown?

Power is the test. Some, once they have it, are content to buy the show of liking, and punish those who withhold it; then you have a despot. But some keep a true eye for how they seem to others, and care about it, which holds them back from much mischief.

What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence; the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.