No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.

Absolute power demoralizes.

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

The few have not strength to achieve great changes unaided; the many have not wisdom to be moved by truth unmixed.

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

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.

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.