The world is full of religion, and full of misery and crime.

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

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.

We have ... dreamed so much and observed so little, that our imaginations have grown larger than the world we live in, and our judgments have dwindled down to a point.

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.

You have heard of, and studied various systems of philosophy; but real philosophy is opposed to all systems.

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