A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man’s attention and to inflame his ambition.
Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?
Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise man decline, others will not; if honest man refuse it, others will not.
There is but one element of government, and that is THE PEOPLE. From this element spring all governments. “For a nation to be free, it is only necessary that she wills it.” For a nation to be slave, it is only necessary that she wills it.
Politics are the divine science, after all.
It’s of more importance to community that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished.
My history of the Jesuits is not elegantly written, but is supported by unquestionable authorities, is very particular and very horrible. Their restoration is indeed “a step toward darkness,” cruelty, perfidy, despotism, death and I wish we were out of danger of bigotry and Jesuitism.
One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.
If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence...
Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.
I request that they may be considered in confidence, until the members of Congress are fully possessed of their contents, and shall have had opportunity to deliberate on the consequences of their publication; after which time, I submit them to your wisdom.
Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.
I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.
Did you ever see a portrait of a great man without perceiving strong traits of pain and anxiety?
I must study war and politics so that my children shall be free to study commerce, agriculture and other practicalities, so that their children can study painting, poetry and other fine things.
Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.
I didn’t grow up imagining myself as an opera composer. Only once in my entire adolescence did I attend an opera. I went and saw Aida at the old Met, didn’t understand a thing about it, and thought it was pretty awful. But I think I had it in my genes without even realising it.
Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.