The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are blindly adopted; the second wilfully preferred.

It [Calvinism] established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.

By common consent, gray hairs are a crown of glory: the only object of respect that can never excite envy.

Sedition is bred in the lap of luxury and its chosen emissaries are the beggared spendthrift and the impoverished libertine.

Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.

Beauty is but the sensible image of the infinite. Like truth and justice, it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law, it is a companion of the soul.

If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal?

In 1688 England contracted to the Netherlands the highest debt that one nation can owe to another. Herself not knowing how to recover her liberties, they were restored by men of the United Provinces.

The measure of progress of civilization is the progress of the people.

Avarice is the vice of declining years.

Do not instigate or treat any of your employees, working at your place, with contempt. Treat everyone with respect. You never know what benefit a person will bring.

It's too bad we're not all teddy bears. More stuffing would only make us cuter and cuddlier.

We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortunes of others.

The Statue of Liberty is meant to be shorthand for a country so unlike its parts that a trip from California to Indiana should require a passport.

I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.

THE KNOWN CHILD I wondered to what extent people remained the same as they'd been when very young; if one peeled back the layers of living one would come to the known child.

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

Why is everything that is bad for me feel so good?

It seems we are suffering from a very narrow and self serving reading of the Gospel right now.