We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.

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

Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.

If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.

Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.

Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.