“The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.”

To mistake money for wealth, is the same sort of error as to mistake the highway which may be the easiest way of getting to your house or lands, for the house and lands themselves.

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.

Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.

Stupidity is much the same all the world over.

Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.

When one’s ideas are not challenged, one’s ability to defend them weakens.

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.

A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs.

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.

A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.