[F]riends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own.

Neither man nor woman can be worth anything until they have discovered that they are fools. The sooner the discovery is made the better, as there is more time and power for taking advantage of it.

Be not over solicitous about education. It may be able to do much, but it does not do as much as expected from it. It may mould and direct the character, but it rarely alters it.

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.

[F]riends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own.

Nobody ever did anything very foolish except from some strong principle.

What all the wise men promised has not happened and what all the dammed fools said would happen has come to pass.