"...it is a base thing to look to others for your defense instead of depending upon yourself. That defense alone is effectual, sure, and durable which depends upon yourself and your own valor."

"Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied."

"He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss."

"Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it."

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."

"War cannot be avoided; it can only be postponed to the other's advantage."

"I don't like it and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it."

"Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former."

"The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men."

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The eagle has landed."

"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one."

"Effort is not effort until it begins to hurt."