We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary.

Cut off my head, and singular I am, Cut off my tail, and plural I appear; Although my middle's left, there's nothing there! What is my head cut off? A sounding sea; What is my tail cut off? A rushing river; And in their mingling depths I fearless play, Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.

A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady; the latter, constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he too often flings the remainder of his virtue after it in despair.

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

If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, I have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilized.

It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse.