All free communities have both been more exempt from social injustice and crime, and have attained more brilliant prosperity, than any others, or than they themselves after they have lost their freedom.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

Almost all rich veins of original and striking speculation have been opened by systematic half-thinkers.

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.

To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.