An idea weighs nothing, except on the mind.

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.

In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.

For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.

There are certain artists and filmmakers who, I get the impression, are trying to show off how bad their characters can be, how immoral their characters can be.

The way we metabolize our experience of time influences our biological clock.

In life everyone has a choice. The key is: make a right choice.

I realize that, while often happy and often cheerful, I am always sad.

Although I've watched myself making the transition from being a girl to being a woman, I still feel 15 years old. My reflection disagrees.

If you just sit there, and you're a writer, you're bound to write crap. A lot of American writing is crap. And a lot of American writers are professionals.

Living at that pitch, on that edge, is something which many poets engage in to some extent.

Contain all human faces in your own without any judgment of them

All that matters is love and work.

He who has heard the same thing told by 12,000 eye-witnesses has only 12,000 probabilities, which are equal to one strong probability, which is far from certain.