“But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.”

The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man’s pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

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

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing as they must if they believe they can do nothing. There is nothing worse because the council of despair is declaration of irresponsibility; it is Pilate washing his hands.

When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing.

The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.

Those who attempt to level never equalize.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

You can never plan the future by the past.

Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.

Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.

We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.

Port is not for the very young, the vain and the active. It is the comfort of age and the companion of the scholar and the philosopher.

Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.

I’m as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.

Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.

Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.