The public interest requires doing today those things that men of intelligence and good will would wish, five or ten years hence, had been done.

For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views and their works, the measure of excellence in every thing whatsoever

I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice; I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.

When slavery is established in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom.

The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.

Men want to be reminded, who do not want to be taught; because those original ideas of rectitude to which the mind is compelled to assent when they are proposed, are not always as present to us as they ought to be.

In on summer they have done their business... they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures... destroyed all balances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongrous mass of mob and democracy... the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the yoke of law and morals.