He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.

The usual false conclusions of mankind are these: a thing exists, therefore it has a right to exist.

Ah, there are so many things betwixt heaven and earth of which only the poets have dreamed!

A married philosopher belongs to comedy.

My conception of freedom. — The value of a thing sometimes does not lie in that which one attains by it, but in what one pays for it — what it costs us. Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions.

Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes its theory more popular and convincing.

I love him who scattereth golden words in advance of his deeds, and always doeth more than he promiseth: for he seeketh his own down-going.