Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.

The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.

There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate.

Christians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them: experience has shown the error of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of the persecution of those Christians in France whose belief differed a little from that of the king. They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.