“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it’s yellow.

This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.

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.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

All the forces of darkness need to succeed … is for the people to do nothing.

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.

A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.

A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal.

I am not putting a check on anyone. I just have to say that India’s Constitution has given certain rights and freedom to people, but there are some limits, too.

[Marco] Rubio says we should collect all Americans’ records all of the time. The Constitution says otherwise. I think they’re both wrong. I think we defeat terrorism by showing them that we do not fear them.

Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones of a story.

The Founders never intended for Americans to trust their government. Our entire Constitution was predicated on the notion that government was a necessary evil, to be restrained and minimized as much as possible.

We must always embrace individual liberty and enforce the constitutional rights of all Americans-rich and poor, immigrant and native, black and white.

I call myself a constitutional conservative.