Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.

It is a faculty of the human mind to become what it contemplates, and to act in unison with its object.

The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

It will be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen, and on which they have been founded.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.