A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes – will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
The idea that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods, which most experience refutes. History is teeming with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries.
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.
What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.
The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title.
Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.
Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.
There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.
The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.
Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.
Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.
In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.
Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economising.
Miracles have no claim whatever to the character of historical facts and are wholly invalid as evidence of any revelation.
Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.
A government with all this mass of favours to give or to withhold, however free in name, wields a power of bribery scarcely surpassed by an avowed autocracy, rendering it master of the elections in almost any circumstances but those of rare and extraordinary public excitement.
The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.