Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

There are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.

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

Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.

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

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.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.