“He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.”

Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.

Stupidity is much the same all the world over.

Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.

When one’s ideas are not challenged, one’s ability to defend them weakens.

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.

A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs.

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.

A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

Whatever may be the laws and customs of a country, women always give the tone to morals.

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

The Roman state stands by ancient customs, and its manhood.

How many things both just and unjust are sanctioned by custom?

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs… of our barbarous ancestors.

The custom is often noticed in the Old Testament, and still prevails in the east, and in some of the newly discovered South Sea Islands.

Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex.

The requirements of health, and the style of female attire which custom enjoins, are in direct antagonism to each other.