Sincerity is the indispensable ground of all conscientiousness, and by consequence of all heartfelt religion.

Sincerity is the indispensable ground of all conscientiousness, and by consequence of all heartfelt religion.

This spirit of freedom is expanding even where it must struggle against the external obstacles of governments that misunderstand their own function. Such governments are illuminated by the example that the existence of freedom need not give cause for the least concern regarding public order and harmony in the commonwealth. If only they refrain from inventing artifices to keep themselves in it, men will gradually raise themselves from barbarism.

Give me matter, and I will construct a world out of it!

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

[A ruler is merely] the trustee of the rights of other men and he must always stand in dread of having in some way violated these rights.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.