I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.

No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.

Absolute power demoralizes.

Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.

The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.

Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.