An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia.
Category Archive: 1800
The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.
There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.
Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.
Having soon discovered to be great, I must appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer.
The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?
I was not addicted to stealing in my youth, nor have ever been; yet such was the confidence of the Negroes in the neighborhood, even at this early period of my life, in my superior judgment, that they would often carry me with them when they were going on any roguery, to plan for them.
The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.
The English Bible – a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.
There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.