Elizabeth Willing Powel Quotes

[You] have frequently demonstrated that you possess an Empire over yourself. For Gods sake do not yield that Empire to a Love of Ease, Retirement, rural Pursuits, or a false Diffidence of Abilities which those that best know you so justly appreciate. Convince the World then that you are a practical Philosopher, and that your native Philanthropy has inducted you to relinquish an Object so Essiential to your Happiness...That you are not indifferent to the Plaudits of the World I must conclude when I believe that the love of honest Fame has and ever will be predominate in the best the noblest and most capable Natures. Nor is the Approbation of Mankind to be disregarded with Impunity even by you.

I have certainly experienced severe trials, and some hard dispensations of Providence … To travel with some dignity, innocence, and usefulness, down the Road which leads from the Morning of Youth to the Night of the Grave, is perhaps as much as we can flatter ourselves with accomplishing.

Your resignation wou'd elate the Enemies of good Government...They would say that you were actuated by Principles of self-Love alone—that you saw the Post was not tenable with any Prospect of adding to your Fame. The antifederalists would use it as an argument for dissolving the Union, and would urge that you, from Experience, had found the present System a bad one, and had, artfully, withdrawn from it that you might not be crushed under its Ruins.

Powel: Well, Doctor, what have we got?
Benjamin Franklin: A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.
Powel: And why not keep it?
Franklin: Because the people, on tasting the dish, are always disposed to eat more of it than does them good.

I presume your Grand Children are with you, and doubt not that they will afford you every consolation that existing Circumstances will admit. Present me affectionately and sympathetically to them they also have lost a protecting affectionate Connection, and I have lost a much valued Friend.