The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.

Pervading all nature we may see at work a stern discipline , which is a little cruel that it may be very kind.

The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny: the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also; only of a less intense kind.

Without painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and the emotions produced by natural beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm.

If there be an order in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order. So that even were the order intrinsically indifferent, it would facilitate education to lead the individual mind through the steps traversed by the general mind. But the order is not intrinsically indifferent; and hence the fundamental reason why education should be a repetition of civilization in little.

In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.

However insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible.