If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.

Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes - the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defense against external invasion.

The wise man is satisfied with nothing.

No maxim can be more pernicious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be able to bear.

There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness.

The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.

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