Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
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.
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
Falsehood is a perennial spring.
Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.
One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
The march of the human mind is slow.
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.