The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.
People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.
I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.
History, is made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men and woman. All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions have been extraordinary people; and nine tenths of the calamities that have befallen the human race had no other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires.
People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.
A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.
A government cannot be wrong in punishing fraud or force, but it is almost certain to be wrong if, abandoning its legitimate function, it tells private individuals that it knows their business better than they know it themselves.
A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read.
The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.
Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will assuredly do the rest.
Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.
As freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom.
Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions.
Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.
We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary.
In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.
Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.
Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?
The business of everybody is the business of nobody.
Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.
Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.
The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.
Man is so inconsistent a creature that it is impossible to reason from his beliefs to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another.
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