No particular man is necessary to the state. We may depend on it that, if we provide the country with popular institutions, those institutions will provide it with great men.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons.

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

My mother's death put me in touch with my most savage self. As I've grown up and come to terms with her death and accepted it, the pieces of her that I keep don't exist materially.

To that movement, consecrated by religious principle, sustained by an awful sense of justice, and cheered by the brightest hopes of future good, all our powers, talents, and attainments are devoted.

Once you have something so deeply infused in your culture and your brand, it would be very difficult to reverse that inertia if you wanted to.

I live in Jesus, on Jesus, with Jesus, and soon hope to be perfectly conformed to His likeness.

See to it that each hour's feelings, and thoughts, and actions are pure and true; then will your life be such.

Reading is a pleasure, but to finish reading, to come to the blank space at the end, is also a pleasure.

Loyalty is a cohesive force that forges individuals into a team.

And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when.

I believe the personal is the collective. One of the ironies of writing memoir is in using the "I" it becomes an alchemical "we." This is the sorcery of literature.

Silence is only commendable In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.