1800s

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men.

1807

★ 7.2

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

John Marshall

Marbury v. Madison · 1803

★ 7.0

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour

Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Levis

Auguries of Innocence · 1803

★ 7.0

To govern is to choose.

1808

★ 6.9

O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott

1808

★ 6.9

I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that Fate and character are the same conception.

Novalis

1802

★ 6.9

Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain.

Friedrich Schiller

The Maid of Orleans · 1801

★ 6.2

Novel

The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.

Elective Affinities · 1808

★ 6.2

Who strives always to the utmost, For him there is salvation.

I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Faust · 1808

★ 5.6

Letter

Thomas Jefferson

1800

★ 5.5

And throughout all eternity I forgive you, you forgive me.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is... If two laws conflict with each other, the Courts must decide on the operation of each... This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

1804

★ 5.5

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

John Marshall

Marbury v. Madison · 1803

★ 5.4

Play · Drama (play) · Drama

Who reflects too much will accomplish little.

Friedrich Schiller

1804

★ 5.4

Man was made for joy and woe, And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go.

1805

★ 5.4

Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither.

FIRST LAW: In every animal... A more frequent and continuous use of any organ gradually strengthens, develops and enlarges that organ... While the permanent disuse of any organ imperceptibly weakens and deteriorates it, and progressively diminishes its functional capacity, until it finally disappears. SECOND LAW: All the acquisitions or losses wrought by nature in individuals... Are preserved by reproductions to the new individuals which arise.

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollection of Early Childhood · 1807

★ 5.3

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Philosophie Zoologique · 1809

★ 5.2

Speech · Political speech

If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Thomas Jefferson

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 4.6

Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true, than in that of the press. It has accordingly been decided by the practice of the States, that it is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to their luxuriant growth, than by pruning them away, to injure the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits.

James Madison

1800

★ 4.5

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

Certainly all those who have framed written Constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be that an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void.

John Marshall

Marbury v. Madison · 1803

★ 4.5

Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast.

Faust · 1808

★ 4.0

Man will err while yet he strives.

Faust · 1808

★ 4.0

Law is mighty, mightier necessity.

Faust · 1808

★ 4.0

All theory, dear friend, is grey, but the golden tree of actual life springs ever green.

Faust · 1808

★ 3.9

Once a man's thirty, he's already old, He is indeed as good as dead. It's best to kill him right away.

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Faust · 1808

★ 3.9

Speech · Political speech

Thomas Jefferson

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 3.8

A Truth that's told with bad intent Beats all the Lies you can invent

Auguries of Innocence · 1803

★ 3.8

The Child is father of the Man.

1802

★ 3.7

I wandered lonely as a cloud.

1804

★ 3.7

There is a smile of love, And there is a smile of deceit, And there is a smile of smiles In which these two smiles meet.

1805

★ 3.7

The atoms of Democritus And Newton’s particles of light Are sands upon the Red Sea shore, Where Israel’s tents do shine so bright.

1807

★ 3.7

Never pain to tell thy love Love that never told can be For the gentle wind does move Silently invisibly

1807

★ 3.7

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!

In this world I would rather live two days like a tiger, than two hundred years like a sheep.

1809

★ 3.7

Tipu Sultan

1800

★ 3.6

Lecture · Philosophical literature

Architecture in general is frozen music.

Friedrich von Schelling

1803

★ 3.6

Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.

Jacques Delille

1803

★ 3.6

Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue.

Robert Southey

1805

★ 3.6

Now tell us all about the war, And what they kill'd each other for.

Robert Southey

1805

★ 3.6

No, there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.

Thomas Moore

1807

★ 3.6

I traveled among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee.