States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

Political men, like goats, usually thrive best among inequalities.

God made the rose out of what was left of woman at the creation. The great difference is, we feel the rose's thorns when we gather it; and the other's when we have had it for some time.

Fancy is imagination in her youth and adolescence. Fancy is always excursive; imagination, not seldom, is sedate.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

Greatness, as we daily see it, is unsociable.