George Bancroft

The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.

Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.

In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person.

The best government rests on the people and not on the few on persons and not on property on the free development of public opinion and not on authority

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

Avarice is the vice of declining years.

Conscience is the mirror of our souls which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement.

Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.

Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself were it possible.

By common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy.

The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.

The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.

Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul.

By common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory the only object of respect that can never excite envy.

If reason is a universal faculty, the decision of the common mind is the nearest criterion of truth.

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.