In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, everyone who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find the enviable existence

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.

Every established fact which is too bad to admit of any other defence is always presented to us as an injunction of religion.

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

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.

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.

Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.