“In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.”

Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.

Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!

Power ought to serve as a check to power.

If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.

When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.

The power of divorce can be given only to those who feel the inconveniences of marriage, and who are sensible of the moment when it is for their interest to make them cease.

If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person… there can be no liberty.

They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings.

Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.

We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.

I did have a big following in the upper New York area. I was at the New York State Fair a few times over the years. I have areas that I say are my areas.

The problem is, we’ve had three generations of Iranians who have come to really hate the United States.

Globally the Greens have arisen like a spontaneous combustion, a reaction to the narrow-minded state-backed exploitation of resources and wealth for a few at the expense of the many.

I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn’t exist.

The purpose of the Jewish state is to secure the Jewish future. That is why Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, against any threat.

Today, we talk a lot about terrorism, but we rarely talk about state terrorism.

I don’t think anyone can walk through the world in a state of vulnerability all the time, can they?

Our policy is very simple. The Jewish state was set up to defend Jewish lives, and we always reserve the right to defend ourselves.