It is seldom that any liberty is lost all at once.

I began to entertain a suspicion, that no man in this age was sufficiently qualified for such an undertaking; and that whatever any one should advance on that head would, in all probability, be refuted by further experience, and be rejected by posterity. Such mighty revolutions have happened in human affairs, and so many events have arisen contrary to the expectation of the ancients, that they are sufficient to beget the suspicion of still further changes.

Of all sciences there is none, where first appearances are more deceitful than in politics.

In modern war, the longest purse decides oftener than the longest sword.

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

Property rights are not the rights of property; they are the rights of humans with regard to property. They are a particular kind of human right.