Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves, as he loves us better, too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skills.
The effect of liberty on individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.
The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.
Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. 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 is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge thei...
