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.

No man has come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman - the powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.

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.

The peculiar essence of our banking system is an unprecedented trust between man and man. And when that trust is much weakened by hidden causes, a small accident may greatly hurt it, and a great accident for a moment may almost destroy it.

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards