We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness about us at little expense. Some of them will fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others, and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring.

Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.

Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.

Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it.

As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends.

What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day's time they will have turned it into a Hell.