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.

Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.

Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.

False principles, which correspond with the bad as well as with the just aspirations of mankind, are a normal and necessary element in the social life of nations.

Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.

Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.