Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.

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.

Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

All wealth is power, so power must infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other.

Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it.

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.