A man who has humility will have acquired in the last reaches of his beliefs the saving doubt of his own certainty.

Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.

Life is an irreversible process and for that reason its future can never be a repetition of the past.

Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. The average conservative is a slave to the most incidental and trivial part of his forefathers glory - to the archaic formula which happened to express their genius or the eighteenth-century contrivance by which for a time it was served.

What each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but on pictures made by himself or given to him...

It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.

Only the very rarest of princes can endure even a little criticism, and few of them can put up with even a pause in the adulation.