Thomas Paine: “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.

The American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.

They had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery.

Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France.