The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.
Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for the truth.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." [Preface to Brissot's Address to His Constituents (1794)]
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
No power so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do.
People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.
Kings will be tyrants by policy when subjects are rebels from principle.
They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views and their works, the measure of excellence in every thing whatsoever
The greatest gift is a passion for reading.
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
