A People Who Are Still, As 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.

Instead Of Casting Away All Our Old Prejudices, We Cherish Them To A Very Considerable Degree, And, To Take More Shame To Ourselves, We Cherish Them Because They Are Prejudices; And The Longer They Have Lasted And The More Generally They Have Prevailed, The More We Cherish Them. We Are Afraid To Put Men To Live And Trade Each On His Own Private Stock Of Reason; Because We Suspect That This Stock In Each Man Is Small, And That The Individuals Would Do Better To Avail Themselves Of The General Bank And Capital Of Nations And Of Ages.

An Extreme Rigor Is Sure To Arm Everything Against It.

But A Good Patriot, And A True Politician, Always Considers How He Shall Make The Most Of The Existing Materials Of His Country. A Disposition, To Preserve, And An Ability To Improve, Taken Together, Would Be My Standard Of A Statesman. Everything Else Is Vulgar In The Conception, Perilous In The Execution.

I Cannot Conceive How Any Man Can Have Brought Himself To That Pitch Of Presumption, To Consider His Country As Nothing But Carte Blanche, Upon Which He May Scribble Whatever He Pleases.