Often do the spirits stride on before the event; and in today already walks tomorrow.

A Court has no right to strain the law because it causes hardship.

Law grows, and though the principles of law remain unchanged, yet (and it is one of the advantages of the common law) their application is to be changed with the changing circumstances of the times. Some persons may call this retrogression, I call it progression of human opinion.

We have no adequate conception of the perfection of the ancient tragic dance. The pleasure which the greeks received from it had for its basis difference; & the more unfit the vehicle, the more lively was the curiosity & intense the delights at seeing the difficulty overcome.

A rogue is a roundabout fool.

I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit; in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy.

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.