Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
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Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
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Our patience will achieve more than our force.
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The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
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Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They sometimes grow out of the necessities, always out of the habits, of slavish and degenerate spirits. It is an erect countenance, it is a firm adherence to principle, it is a power of resisting false shame and frivolous fear, that assert our good faith and honor, and assure to us the confidence of mankind.
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Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.
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By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
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To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
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You can never plan the future by the past.
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Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
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When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
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It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
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A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
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No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear
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All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
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In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.
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No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
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Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
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The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
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Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises; it costs nothing.
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Custom reconciles us to everything.
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A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
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All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
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If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.
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Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
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What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
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