“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the law of nature and of nations.

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man’s pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Those who have been intoxicated with power… can never willingly abandon it.

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing as they must if they believe they can do nothing. There is nothing worse because the council of despair is declaration of irresponsibility; it is Pilate washing his hands.

When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing.

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.

Those who attempt to level never equalize.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

I never met another man I’d rather be. And even if that’s a delusion, it’s a lucky one.

If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.

There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.

When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.

Such delusions of grandeur to think that a God with a hundred billion galaxies on his mind would give a tuppenny damn who you sleep with, or indeed whether you believe in him.

Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that’s also the definition of delusion.