With respect to the doctrine of a future life, a North American Indian knows just as much as any ancient or modern philosopher.

Power, safely defied, touches its downfall.

Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.

As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

A beggarly people, A church and no steeple.