“A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.”

Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.

The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong.

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.

The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.

The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.

When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.

Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power — power sufficient to interfere with property.

Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.

History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.

Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.

The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.