Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.

Love of power more frequently originates in vanity than pride (two qualities, by the way, which are often confounded) and is, consequently, yet more peculiarly the sin of little than of great minds.

I shall say, that I feel myself virtuous, because my soul is at rest.

... the happiness of a people is the only rational object of government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all.

Do we exert our own liberties without injury to others - we exert them justly; do we exert them at the expense of others - unjustly. And, in thus doing, we step from the sure platform of liberty upon the uncertain threshold of tyranny.

Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands.

How are men to be secured in any rights without instruction; how to be secured in the equal exercise of those rights without equality of instruction? By instruction understand me to mean knowledge - just knowledge; not talent, not genius, not inventive mental powers.