Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

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

Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of the universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.

For centuries it was never discovered that education was a function of the State, and the State never attempted to educate. But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power....When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.