Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.

If religious belief be indeed so necessary to mankind, as we are continually assured that it is, there is great reason to lament, that the intellectual grounds of it should require to be backed by moral bribery or subornation of the understanding.

It is only in the backward countries of the world that increased production is still an important object.

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses.

Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action.

When the people are too much attached to savage independence, to be tolerant of the amount of power to which it is for their good that they should be subject, the state of society is not yet ripe for representative government.