“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.”

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.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.

The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.

A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

Over one’s mind and over one’s body the individual is sovereign.

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.