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

As freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom.

Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.

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

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors.

The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.