“A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.”

The principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.

We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.

To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.

When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.

Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.

Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.

There should be a law to the People besides its own will.

History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.

Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.

The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.

. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free.

The minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.

In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man’s craving for power, and the poor man’s craving for food.

Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

The process of empowerment cannot be simplistically defined in accordance with our own particular class interests. We must learn to lift as we climb.

You can’t keep asking for a particular relationship and hold a negative view of love.  

A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets tough.

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.

Since man’s highest mission on earth is to spiritualize everything, it is his excrement in particular that needs it most.

My death will be the disappearance of a particular pattern in the water.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.

Whoever obeys the gods, to him they particularly listen.