The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.

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.

Books have a way of finding their way into our lives, usually, right when we need them the most.

After all my years of playing soldiers, and then of reading History, I have almost a mania to be in the East, to see fighting, and to serve.

I get tired of playing a guy who gets into a fight, then starts singing to the guy he's just beat up.

Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much.

The breath of an aristocrat is the death rattle of freedom.

You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

The only way that entire car is worth 500 bucks is if there's a 300 dollar hooker sitting in it.

Everybody has 24 hours and the question is, what do you do with your 24 hours? That's what makes everybody equal.

When I was ten, I wrote an essay on what I would be when I grew up and said I would be a professional soccer player and a comedian in off season.

Courage is knowing that you're beaten and forging ahead anyway.