Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.

Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.

I shall attempt to prove two things: first, that the actions and dispositions of mankind are the offspring of circumstances and events, and not of any original determination that they bring into the world; and, secondly, that the great stream of our voluntary actions essentially depends, not upon the direct and immediate impulses of sense, but upon the decisions of the understanding.

Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.

We are so curiously made that one atom put in the wrong place in our original structure will often make us unhappy for life.

It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.

The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.