There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Guard against the prestige of great names; see that your judgments are your own; and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without testing

History must be our deliverer not only from the undue influence of other times, but from the undue influence of our own, from the tyranny of environment and the pressures of the air we breathe

Never be surprised at the crumbling of an idol or the disclosure of a skeleton

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men

Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity

Two forces which are the worst enemies of civil freedom are the absolute monarchy and the revolution

Machiavelli’s teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.

(History is) not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul

In every age its (liberty’s) progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man’s craving for power, and the...

A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first element of freedom

Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favorites

If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.

Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; but still more when they are super bad and add the tendency of the certainty of corruption of authority

Resist your time – take a foothold outside it