-
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
-
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
-
Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.
-
You can never plan the future by the past.
-
Education is the cheap defense of nations.
-
Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
-
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
-
A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
-
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
-
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
-
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
-
Ambition can creep as well as soar.
-
Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
-
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
-
Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
-
The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
-
The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.
-
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
-
When we speak of the commerce with our American colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
-
Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.