A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition.
Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.
Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
Fanaticism displays itself in the masses; but the masses were rarely fanaticised; and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the calculations of dispassionate politicians.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority.
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
History is not a web woven with innocent hands. Among all the causes which degrade and demoralize men, power is the most constant and the most active.
History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
In judging men and things Ethics go before Dogma, Politics or Nationality. The Ethics of History cannot be denominational.
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist.
Judge not according to the orthodox standard of a system religious, philosophical, political, but according as things promote, or fail to promote the delicacy, integrity, and authority of Conscience.
Learn as much by writing as by reading.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.
Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control.
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime...
Patriotism is in political life what faith is in religion, and it stands to the domestic feelings and to home-sickness as faith to fanaticism and to superstition.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Property is not the sacred right. When a rich man becomes poor it is a misfortune, it is not a moral evil. When a poor man becomes destitute, it is a moral evil, teeming with consequences and injurious to society and morality.
Put conscience above both system and success.
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class.
The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
The man who prefers his country before every other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the State. They both deny that right is superior to authority.
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.
The story of the future is written in the past, and that which hath been is the same thing that shall be.
The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
Universal History is... not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.
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