You need not value it yourself if you do not wish to; but you ought to allow it to us who do value it.

When the reality of power has been surrendered, it's playing a dangerous game to seek to retain the appearance of it; the external aspect of vigor can sometimes support a debilitated body, but most often it manages to deal it the final blow.

Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true nature; they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments. Unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind.

To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power; the habits, ideas and passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal.

The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as he conceives the idea of escaping from it.

Life is to be entered upon with courage.

Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.