A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within....for the traitor appears not to be a traitor...he rots the soul of a nation...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
There is nothing which wings its flight so swiftly as calumny, nothing is uttered with more ease; nothing is listened to with more readiness, nothing disbursed more widely.
History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquities.
It is not easy to distinguish between true and false affection, unless there occur one of those crises in which, as gold is tried by fire, so a faithful friendship may be tested by danger.
I am of opinion that there is nothing so beautiful but that there is something still more beautiful, of which this is the mere image and expression,--a something which can neither be perceived by the eyes, the ears, nor any of the senses; we comprehend it merely in the imagination.