All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities. - Edmund Burke

Let us, Sir, embrace some system or other before we end this session. Do you mean to tax America, and to draw a productive revenue from thence? If you do, speak out: name, fix, ascertain this revenue; settle its quantity; define its objects; provide for its collection; and then fight, when you have something to fight for. If you murder, rob; if you kill, take possession; and do not appear in the character of madmen as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may better counsels guide you!

There is no qualification for government, but virtue and wisdom, whether actual or presumptive. . . . Every thing ought to be open; but not indifferently to every man.

To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. However, he attempted it.