Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.

A coward’s courage is in his tongue.

He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.

Religion, to have any force upon men’s understandings,–indeed, to exist at all,–must be supposed paramount to law, and independent for its substance upon any human institution, else it would be the absurdist thing in the world,–an acknowledged cheat.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.

There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.

The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little.

And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators, the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.

Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.

In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.

History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.

Evil prevails when good men fail to act.

A great empire and little minds go ill together.

All the forces of darkness need to succeed … is for the people to do nothing.

A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

You can never plan the future by the past.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Those who have been intoxicated with power… can never willingly abandon it.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

All men have equal rights, but not to equal things.

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing as they must if they believe they can do nothing. There is nothing worse because the council of despair is declaration of irresponsibility; it is Pilate washing his hands.

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.

Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

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.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.

The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it’s yellow.

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.

Good order is the foundation of all things.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease.

Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess.

The cold neutrality of an impartial judge.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

The people should be satisfied with power, not intoxicated by it.

To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the Law of Nature and of Nations.

Revenge is the wild justice of the uneducated man.

The march of the human mind is slow.

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part, and by no means the greatest part.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds

Laws, like houses, lean on one another

The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

No power so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.