Adventure is the life of commerce, but caution is the life of banking.

A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.

All people are most credulous when they are most happy.

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

It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.

History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world have a chance for it.

Capital must be propelled by self-interest; it cannot be enticed by benevolence.