A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.

Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality; it tends to over-government in point of quantity.

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.

The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.

The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm.

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong.