“Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.”

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play.

But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power….

If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

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

When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.

In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.

Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.

The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.

Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.

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.

I am self-taught. In other words, God is my teacher.

There was no reason to call or write letters. As it would have been meaningless, if we couldn’t hold each other tight.

The difference between us and the other side is that they use populist and…kind of slogans that are…they fool the people.

It is wrong to even compare such actions to what is done in Guantanamo or elsewhere by the Americans. They do not stand on a high moral platform to preach to others.

It’s precisely the people who are considered the least ‘likely’ leaders who end up inspiring others the most.

I could feel the tears beginning to collect in my throat again, but I pushed them apart, away from each other. Tears are only a threat in groups.

Whilst others are children of the night, their minds consumed with nocturnal notions; but yet there are some in whom the two merge like the rising of the sun and the moon in a day.

We have limited time in our life, therefore we should try to teach ourselves, not to teach others.