The upper current of society presents no pertain criterion by which we can judge of the direction in which the under current flows.

A man possessed of splendid talents, which he often abused, and of a sound judgment, the admonitions of which he often neglected; a man who succeeded only in an inferior department of his art, but who in that department succeeded pre-eminently.

It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.

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 seen the hippopotamus, both asleep and awake; and I can assure you that, awake or asleep, he is the ugliest of the works of God.

The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belonged to intellectual superiority.

The great cause of revolutions is this, that while nations move onward, constitutions stand still.