Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere with.

No person is ever good for much, that hasn't been swept off their feet by enthusiasm between ages twenty and thirty

The first duty of an historian is to be on his guard against his own sympathies...

Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

Carelessness is inexcusable, and merits the inevitable sequence.

Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.

English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts.