What, then, do they want a government for? Not to regulate commerce; not to educate the people; not to teach religion, not to administer charity; not to make roads and railways; but simply to defend the natural rights of man -- to protect person and property -- to prevent the aggressions of the powerful upon the weak -- in a word, to administer justice. This is the natural, the original, office of a government. It was not intended to do less: it ought not to be allowed to do more.

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

So far from science being irreligious, as many think, it is the neglect of science that is irreligious-it is the refusal to study the surrounding creation that is irreligious.

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

All socialism involves slavery.

Government is essentially immoral. The State employs evil weapons to subjugate evil, and is alike contaminated by the objects with which it deals, and the means by which it works.

Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity.