Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.

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.

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.

Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.

Soon would come the night in which there was no more work – not the work of the hands, nor the work of the mind, nor the work of the heart.

I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.

We are so rebellious that when we die our cells refuse to live a second longer. But our souls they live always....

I once went on the most grueling radio tour. Living in hotel rooms, sleeping in the backs of rental cars as my mom drove to three different cities in one day.

There is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of the good cause.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that morality is not just a matter of opinion.

Much must he toil who serves the Immortal Gods.

In college I studied essays with a poet, and so I think my interpretation of the genre was always going to be a little off-kilter.

The old days were slower. People buttered their bread without guilt and sat down to dinner en famille.

Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal.