"If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools."

"The good are like one another, and friends to one another; and ... the bad, as is often said of them, are never at unity with one another or with themselves, but are passionate and restless: and that which is at variance and enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or harmony with any other thing.,."

"Misanthropy ariseth from a man trusting another without having sufficient knowledge of his character, and, thinking him to be truthful, sincere, and honorable, finds a little afterwards that he is wicked, faithless, and then he meets with another of the same character. When a man experiences this often, and more particularly from those whom he considered his most dear and best friends, at last, having frequently made a slip, he hates the whole world, and thinks that there is nothing sound at all in any of them."

"Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous."

"Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know."

"I used to imagine that no human can make men good; but I know better now."