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

“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.”

“We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them.”

“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.”

“A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.”

“No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.”

“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.”