All men have equal rights, but not to equal things. |
Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. |
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. |
In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations. |
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. |
People crushed by law have no hope but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous... |
Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation. |
The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity. |
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. |
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered. |
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. |
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service. |
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation. |
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. |
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. |
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. |
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. |
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. |
Liberty, without wisdom, is license. |
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. |
