The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.

That great political idea, sanctifying freedom and consecrating it to God, teaching men to treasure the liberties of others as their own and to defend them for the love of justice and charity more than as a claim of right, has been the soul of what is great and good in the progress of the last two hundred years.

History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.

Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for the security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life.

Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.