For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.

In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.

Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.

Democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is corrupted, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality.

A word is a small song.

Wisdom is bestowed by the Creator.

The world is full of bullshitters, Liars, and triers and quitters, Coulda-beens, wannabe's, thought-I-was, isn't-I-is's... And everybody in your business.

I go back to where I came from, to where I was before I was born, that’s all.

My so-called failures have been some of my greatest learning tools. I just make sure to fail up.

I don't know how much I can be bothered to have to lose the baby weight. It's such a pain... I'm not one of those people for whom it magically drops off.

Living an environmentally responsible lifestyle can seem like a Scrooge-like list of don'ts. Don't take that flight, don't buy that car, don't eat those blueberries flown in from somewhere far-flung.

He had found many years ago before that if you kept very quiet people filled in the silences themselves,offering more information than they had originally intended to give.

He let his mouth linger on mine, neither possessively nor sweetly... like his mouth just belonged there on mine. And he was right. It did. It always had.

My father died in my arms. That's tumult. That's everything exploding.