There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.

The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.

Self-preservation and self-denial: the basis of all political economy.

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

It is they [men of science] who hold the secret of the mysterious property of the mind by which error ministers to truth, and truth slowly but irrevocably prevails. Theirs is the logic of discovery, the demonstration of the advance of knowledge and the development of ideas, which as the earthly wants and passions of men remain almost unchanged, are the charter of progress, and the vital spark in history.

History is not only a particular branch of knowledge, but a particular mode and method of knowledge in other branches.

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.