My Vigour Relents. I Pardon Something To

Tyrants Seldom Want Pretexts.

I Have Never Yet Seen Any Plan Which Has Not Been Mended By The Observations Of Those Who Were Much Inferior In Understanding To The Person Who Took The Lead In The Business.

Obstinacy, Sir, Is Certainly A Great Vice; And In The Changeful State Of Political Affairs It Is Frequently The Cause Of Great Mischief. It Happens, However, Very Unfortunately, That Almost The Whole Line Of The Great And Masculine Virtues--constancy, Gravity, Magnanimity, Fortitude, Fidelity, And Firmness--are Closely Allied To This Disagreeable Quality, Of Which You Have So Just An Abhorrence; And In Their Excess All These Virtues Very Easily Fall Into It.

Society Is Indeed A Contract. It Is A Partnership In All Science; A Partnership In All Art; A Partnership In Every Virtue, And In All Perfection. As The Ends Of Such A Partnership Cannot Be Obtained In Many Generations, It Becomes A Partnership Not Only Between Those Who Are Living, But Between Those Who Are Living, Those Who Are Dead, And Those Who Are To Be Born.

Men Are Qualified For Civil Liberty In Exact Proportion To Their Disposition To Put Moral Chains Upon Their Own Appetites…in Proportion As They Are More Disposed To Listen To The Counsels Of The Wise And Good, In Preference To The Flattery Of Knaves. Society Cannot Exist, Unless A Controlling Power Upon Will And Appetite Be Placed Somewhere; And The Less Of It There Is Within, The More There Must Be Without. It Is Ordained In The Eternal Constitution Of Things, That Men Of Intemperate Minds Cannot Be Free. Their Passions Forge Their Fetters.