With each person our heart loves, our soul becomes stronger.
Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident and removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long.
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness.
[Whole] generations may be swept away by the madness of kings in the space of a single hour.
Human beings are, necessarily, actors who. . . can be divided. . . into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.
If there ever comes a day when the Saints interfere with the rights of others to live as they see fit, you can know with assurance that the Church is no longer led by a Prophet, but a mere man.
You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real.
Revolution is like the daughters of Pelias: it cuts humanity to pieces in order to rejuvenate it.