The principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

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.

It is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of weakness.

The history of institutions is often a history of deception and illusions; for their virtue depends on the ideas that produce and on the spirit that preserves them, and the form may remain unaltered when the substance has passed away.

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.