I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history.

A few more years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron.

In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.