“It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.”

There is an imaginary circle drawn around every human being, over which no government should be able to step.

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.

There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it.

He who lets the world choose his plan of life for him has need of no other faculty than that of ape-like imitation.

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar; particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England

The study of science teaches young men to think, while study of the classics teaches them to express thought.

The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.

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

Since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

The object of universities is not to make skillful lawyers, physicians or engineers. It is to make capable and cultivated human beings.

No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is.

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

Liberty lies in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious.

The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.