What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?

For there is such a thing as a broken spirit.

It has an unhappy effect upon the human understanding and temper, for a man to be compelled in his gravest investigation of an argument, to consider, not what is true, but what is convenient.

The most desirable mode of education. . . . is that which is careful that all the acquisitions of the pupil shall be preceded and accompanied by desire . . . The boy, like the...

Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.

Everything understood by the term co-operation is in some sense an evil.

My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past, with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image.

Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.

Strange that men, from age to age, should consent to hold their lives at the breath of another, merely that each in his turn may have a power of acting the tyrant according to the...

Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.

A soldier is a man whose business it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the innocent martyrs of other men’s iniquities. Whatever may become of the abstract question of the...

One of the prerogatives by which man is eminently distinguished from all other living beings inhabiting this globe of earth, consists in the gift of reason.

A book is a dead man, a sort of mummy, embowelled and embalmed, but that once had flesh, and motion, and a boundless variety of determinations and actions.

They held it their duty to live but for their country.

The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.

God himself has no right to be a tyrant.

There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.

if admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem.

The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.

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...

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...

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

It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some...

Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

I know many men who are misanthropes, and profess to look down with disdain on their species. My creed is of an opposite character. All that we observe that is best and most excellent in...

He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound… to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be...

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...

Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind.

Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius . . . he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.

There is reverence that we owe to everything in human shape.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.

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

Books have been handed down from generation to generation, as the true teachers of piety and the love of God, that represent him as so merciless and tyrannical a despot, that, if they were considered...

What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.

In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.

Obey; this may be right; but beware of reverence. Government is nothing but regulated force; force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade; the tendency of concentrated...

The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind.

But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.

Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions.

The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.

Once annihilate the quackery of government, and the most homebred understanding might be strong enough to detect the artifices of the state juggler that would mislead him.

Trust [the student] in a certain degree with himself. Suffer him in some instances to select his own course of reading. There is danger that there should be something to studied and monotonous in the...

To him it is an ocean, unfathomable, and without a shore.

Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.

Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.

The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.

It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn. The true object of juvenile education, is to provide, against the age of five and...

If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such.