A government cannot be wrong in punishing fraud or force, but it is almost certain to be wrong if, abandoning its legitimate function, it tells private individuals that it knows their business better than they know it themselves.

With the dead there is no rivalry, with the dead there is no change.

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.

The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.

Even the law of gravitation would be brought into dispute were there a pecuniary interest involved.

People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.

It is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age.