Mediocrity is a hand-rail.

There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix

Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.

If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse

We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.

I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.

The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.