“The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.”

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.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.

Great men are almost always bad men.

False principles, which correspond with the bad as well as with the just aspirations of mankind, are a normal and necessary element in the social life of nations.

There are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.

Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.

There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.

The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.

A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.

I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.

Nature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a God. That is to say, to explain what you understand very little, you have need of a cause which you understand not at all.

The Republican Party: a few million gun-toting, Armageddon-ready Baptists.

Frankly, I adore your catchy slogan, “Adoption, not Abortion,” although no one has been able to figure out, even with expert counseling, how to use adoption as a method of birth control, or at what time of the month it is most effective.

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

I was desperately unhappy trying to adjust to the world.

From 1949 to the present, for every dollar the US spent on an African, it spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every dollar it spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the US, it spent $214 on an Israeli.

This sense of wonder leads most scientists to a Superior Being – der Alte, the Old One, as Einstein affectionately called the Deity – a Superior Intelligence, the Lord of all Creation and Natural Law.

We have followed a path of moderation, development is our priority, national unity, good community relations