To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.

Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.

With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.

Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.