“Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.”

“Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of a good book.”

“Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.”

“Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.”

“He that will only believe what he can fully comprehend must either have a very long head, or a very short creed.”

“Liberty will not descend to a people. A people must raisethemselves to liberty. It is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”

“The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame”