Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Many evil men are rich, and good men poor, but we shall not exchange with them our excellence for riches.
Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
There is a time when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor obtain protection.
To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself.
History is simply a piece of paper covered with print: the main thing is to make history, not to write it.
As contraries are known by contraries, so is the delight of presence best known by the torments of absence.
He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.
It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
Seek to learn constantly while you live; do not wait in the faith that old age by itself will bring wisdom.
The method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best.
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.
There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.
They [Americans] augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
The stupid don't even understand something that happened long ago, the wise understand it before it develops.
While Zinoviev is in the majority he is for iron discipline.... When he is in the minority... he is against it.
There is a Passion natural to the Mind of man, especially a free Man, which renders him impatient of Restraint.
People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.
A government must not waiver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.
All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.
Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition.
All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.
We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God, which lets us love and foster peace.
The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of his wisdom who made it.
General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked.
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
The augmentation of slaves weakens the states; and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind.
Instead of the animistic, mechanistic, or the mathematical universe, we see the genetic, organic, holistic universe.
Beware of sentimental alliances where the consciousness of good deeds is the only compensation for noble sacrifices.
Don't borrow money from a neighbor or a friend, but of a stranger where, paying for it you shall hear of it no more.
Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.
And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
I quitted my Seat in the House of Delegates, from a Conviction that I was no longer able to do any essential Service.
The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.
The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!
No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above Justice?
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.
Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world.
An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.
A really great man is known by three signs: generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success.