As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.

God himself has no right to be a tyrant.

If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.

The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive; the right in certain cases to do as we list; and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.

The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.

Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.

There is no sphere in which a human being can be supposed to act where one mode of reasoning will not, in every given instance, be more reasonable than any other mode. That mode the being is bound by every principle of justice to pursue.