Men are nothing until they are excited.

The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.

What fear has once made me will, I am bound still to will when without fear.

We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him.

There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline.

Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness.

I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that tied them together.