I Never Engaged In Public

When Legislature Is Corrupted, The People Are Undone.

I Sometimes, In My Sprightly Moments, Consider Myself, In My Great Chair At School, As Some Dictator At The Head Of A Commonwealth. In This Little State I Can Discover All The Great Geniuses, All The Surprising Actions And Revolutions Of The Great World In Miniature. I Have Several Renowned Generals But Three Feet High, And Several Deep-projecting Politicians In Petticoats. I Have Others Catching And Dissecting Flies, Accumulating Remarkable Pebbles, Cockleshells, Etc., With As Ardent Curiosity As Any Virtuoso In The Royal Society.

This Is My Religion ... Joy And Exaltation In My Own Existence ... So Go Ahead And Snarl ... Bite ... Howl, You Calvinistic Divines And All You Who Say I Am No Christian. I Say You Are Not Christian.

While All Other Sciences Have Advanced, That Of Government Is At A Standstill - Little Better Understood, Little Better Practiced Now Than Three Or Four Thousand Years Ago.

Public Business Must Always Be Done By Somebody. It Will Be Done By Somebody Or Other. If Wise Man Decline, Others Will Not; If Honest Man Refuse It, Others Will Not.