“To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.”

Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked.

There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.

The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

That the greatest security of the people, against the encroachments and usurpations of their superiors, is to keep the Spirit of Liberty constantly awake, is an undeniable truth.

The credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

Age is a state of old mind. It gets to a point where if you get old enough, you forget how old you are, and that’s the best thing. And then you walk around kind of like in a fog.

Nothing, it is true, is more common than for both Science and Art to pay homage to the spirit of the age, and for creative taste to accept the law of critical taste.

I don’t know whether I’ll reach 40. I don’t know whether I’ll reach 35. I can’t be sure about that. I am bloody serious. I am very, very serious. I didn’t think I’d make 30.

Age is just a number. Who cares how old the girl is that I date?

You should not consider a man’s age but his acts.

I never fit in with my peer group. I never hung out with kids my age – I always wanted to hang out with my mom and her girlfriends.

It’s paradoxical, that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.

I’m over 30 now, but I didn’t expect to be here.