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

The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.

If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influences of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.