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

There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

The merit of poetry, in its wildest forms, still consists in its truth-truth conveyed to the understanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by means of imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors.

Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the production of cotton and molasses.

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

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

A beggarly people, A church and no steeple.