If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.

The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.

In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.

Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.

If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.

Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius... he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.

There is reverence that we owe to everything in human shape.

There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.

The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.

Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind.

The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.

Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.

He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.

God himself has no right to be a tyrant.

My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past, with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image.

What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?

The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind.

The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.

They held it their duty to live but for their country.

Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.

As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.

But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.

Everything understood by the term co-operation is in some sense an evil.

The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.

Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.

Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive; the right in certain cases to do as we list; and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men.

What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.

If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such.

It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.

Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions.

To him it is an ocean, unfathomable, and without a shore.

One of the prerogatives by which man is eminently distinguished from all other living beings inhabiting this globe of earth, consists in the gift of reason.

Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.

There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness.

We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.

A just and a brave man acts fearlessly and with explicitness; he does not shun, but court, the scrutiny of mankind; he lives in the face of day, and the whole world confesses the clearness of his spirit and the rectitude of his conduct.

A world of derived beings, an immense, wide creation, requires an extended scale with various ranks and orders of existence.

Act up to the magnitude of your destiny.

During my academical life, and from this time forward, I was indefatigable in my search after truth. I read all the authors of greatest repute, for and against the Trinity, original sin, and the most disputed doctrines, but I was not yet of an understanding sufficiently ripe for impartial decision, and all my inquiries terminated in Calvinism.

Duty is that mode of action which constitutes the best application of the capacity of the individual to the general advantage.

England has been called, with great felicity of conception, 'the land of liberty and good sense.' We have preserved many of the advantages of a free people, which the nations of the Continent have long since lost.

Enthusiasm is always an interesting spectacle. When it expresses itself with an honest and artless eloquence, it is difficult to listen to it and not, in some degree, to catch the flame.

Every boy learns more in his hours of play than in his hours of labor. In school, he lays in the materials of thinking, but in his sports, he actually thinks: he whets his faculties, and he opens his eyes.