In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.

The despotism of custom is on the wane. We are not content to know that things are; we ask whether they ought to be.

The legal subordination of one sex to another - is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.

A being who can create a race of men devoid of real freedom and inevitably foredoomed to be sinners, and then punish them for being what he has made them, may be omnipotent and various other things, but he is not what the English language has always intended by the adjective holy.

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit.