The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.

The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.

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

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