Short Quotes - Author Thomas Babington Showing 1 - 9 of 9 Add Quote Persecution produced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect; it made them a faction. Thomas Babington Effect Upvote0 None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. Thomas Babington Accident Upvote0 And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best? Thomas Babington Society Upvote0 Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely. Thomas Babington Men Upvote0 The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it. Thomas Babington Power Upvote0 American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society. Thomas Babington Society Upvote0 Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear. Thomas Babington Government Upvote0 There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits. Thomas Babington Community Upvote0 To punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked. Thomas Babington Nature Upvote0