“From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens.”

“Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance.”

“It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready.”

“We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings.”

“Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping.”

“Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy.”

“The Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago: China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it. Theres another Chinese saying about their country which is much more modernit dates only from the fourth century. This is the saying: The tail of China is large and will not be wagged. I like that one. The British democracy approves the principles of movable party heads and unwaggable national tails. It is due to the working of these important forces that I have the honour to be addressing you at this moment.”

“Democracy means that when there's a knock in the door at 3 am, it's probably the milkman.”

“Is this government of Britain's Isle, and this the royalty of Albion's King?”

“What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good patriots? "He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.”

“The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly.”

“If I shall be condemned Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake, I tell you 'Tis rigor and not law.”

“Though justice be thy plea consider this, that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation.”

“When law can do no right,Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.”

“I was born free as Caesar; so were you”

“I must have libertyWithal, as large a charter as the wind,To blow on whom I please, for so fools have.”

“What can be happier than for a man, conscious of virtuous acts, and content with liberty, to despise all human affairs?”

“If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud you again.”

“This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this EnglandThis nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,. . .This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land.”

“That England, that was wont to conquer others,Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.”

“To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.”

“But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no tract behind.”

“The Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high on the beach, and was creating and feeding other matters [science] at other ends of the world.”