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.

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

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

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

Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.

Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned,-the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.

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