The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.

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.

I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.

A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.

You can't please everybody, man.

No matter what else they're doing, women are also always nurturing.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

You won't now tell people you're in your 60′s Indeed, you'll have to pretend, no end That you're close to being 70 Let me be the first to agree, old friend

Voting is not only our right, it is our power. When we vote, we take back our power to choose, to speak up, and to stand with those who support us and each other.

Blaze your own trail in life. Make your own choices and make your own mistakes. It's the only way you'll find your own happiness, not someone else's.

Leaving things behind and starting again is a way of coping with difficulties. I learnt very early in my life that I was able to leave a place and still remain myself.

We ought not to heap reproaches on old age, seeing that we all hope to reach it.