It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.

I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.

Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.

With those who wish to think amiss of me, I have learnt to be perfectly indifferent: but where I know a mind to be ingenuous, andto need only truth to set it to rights, I cannot be as passive.

The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.

To be really useful, we must keep pace with the state of society, and not dishearten it by attempts at what its population, means, or occupations will fail in attempting.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.