The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

So much of the presidency is a matter of standing in the path of a Newsham Engine for Quenching Fires, opening one's mouth, and attempting to get a drink.

What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government.

1.Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 2.Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. 3.Never spend your money before you have it. 4.Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. 5.Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. 6.We never repent of having eaten too little. 7.Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. 8.How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened. 9.Take things always by their smooth handle. 10.When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.

We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce.