“Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.”

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing Demagogues, and ending Tyrants.

I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.

A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it.

Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good.

The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

Best of wives and best of women.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state for the acquisition of wealth.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

A powerful, victorious ally is yet another name for master.

The very aim and intention of the democratical part, or the house of commons, is to secure the rights of the people. It’s very being depends upon those rights. Its whole power is derived from them, and must be terminated by them.

Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.

Man is and remains an animal. Here a beast of prey, there a housepet, but always an animal.

It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.

Speaking of competition in the fast-food industry. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I’ll kill ’em, and I’m going to kill ’em before they kill me.

If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?

You can make even a parrot into a learned political economist – all he must learn are the two words “supply” and “demand.”

The highway of life is filled with flat squirrels that couldn’t make a decision.

A cold wind blew on the prairie on the day the last buffalo fell. A death wind for my people.

I got a new dog. He’s a paranoid retriever. He brings back everything because he’s not sure what I threw him.