"We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature."

"A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation."

"Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all."

"A very great part of the mischiefs that vex this world arises from words."

"Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety."

"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."

"Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing."

"I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tombs of the Capulets."

"The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny."

"Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together."

"I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it."

"It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions."

"Our patience will achieve more than our force."

"There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations."

"All government - indeed every human benefit and enjoyment every virtue and every prudent act - is founded on compromise and barter."

"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."

"The traveller has reached the end of the journey!"

"In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority."

"All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing."

"The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity."

"Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own."

"But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."

"Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair."

"The cold neutrality of an impartial judge."

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

"Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver."

"Adversity is a severe instructor. ... He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper."

"Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls."

"War never leaves where it found a nation."

"I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business."

"All That Is Needed For Evil To Succeeded, Is For Good People To Do Nothing."

"Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference."

"It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare."

"Custom reconciles us to everything."

"There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination."

"If ever we should find ourselves disposed not to admire those writers or artists, Livy and Virgil for instance, Raphael or Michael Angelo, whom all the learned had admired, [we ought] not to follow our own fancies, but to study them until we know how and what we ought to admire; and if we cannot arrive at this combination of admiration with knowledge, rather to believe that we are dull, than that the rest of the world has been imposed on."

"Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty."

"Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle."

"Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind."

"If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed."

"Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one."

"Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed."

"What is the use of discussing a man's abstract right to food or medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician rather than the professor of metaphysics."

"A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman."

"No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."

"Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation."

"To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting."

"Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy."

"It is generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles and design."

"Society is indeed a contract. ... It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection."