Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling it never forgives preaching of a new gospel

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe

It is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to approach them

If the grain were separated from the chaff, which fills the works of our national poets, what is truly valuable would be to what is useless in the proportion of a molehill to a mountain

The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse

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

Good order is the foundation of all good things