“England would be better off without Canada; it keeps her in a prepared state for war at a great expense and constant irritation.”

“The art of government is not to let me grow stale.”

“In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them.”

“A man is not dependent upon his fellow creature, when he does not fear death.”

“Do you know what is more hard to bear than the reverses of fortune? It is the baseness, the hideous ingratitude, of man.”

“Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,Nettled and stung with pismires[nettles], when I hearOf this vile politician, Bolingbroke.”

“For Brutus is an honourable man;So are they all, all honourable men.”

“Policy sits above conscience.”

“. . . nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death To throw away the dearest thing he owed, As 'twere a careless trifle.”

“I had rather eleven died nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.”

“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”

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

“In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better.”

“This little world, this little state, this little commonwealth of our own.”