The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.

Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

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

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

Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.

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.