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The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
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You can never plan the future by the past.
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Our patience will achieve more than our force.
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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
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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.
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Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
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Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
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It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
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Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
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Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
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The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
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When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
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Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
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Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
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Education is the cheap defense of nations.
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The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.
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The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
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Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.
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It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
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Ambition can creep as well as soar.
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If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
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If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
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All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.
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Tyrants seldom want pretexts.