Between craft and credulity, the voice of reason is stifled.
In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.
Too much idleness, I have observed, fills up a man’s time more completely and leaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoever.
Hypocrisy is no cheap vice; nor can our natural temper be masked for many years together.
Of all things, wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that against which she is the least able to furnish any kind of resource.
The credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves.
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man’s pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.
The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blanches, the thought that never wanders, the purpose that never wavers – these are the masters of victory.
Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.
I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.
As to great and commanding talents, they are the gift of Providence in some way unknown to us, they rise where they are least expected; they fail when everything seems disposed to produce them, or at least to call them forth.
It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.
He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.
To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil.
To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself.
The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His perfections.
The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right.
Turn over a new leaf.