Suppose we put a tax upon learning? Learning, it is true, is a useless commodity, but I think we had better lay it on ignorance; for learning being the property but of a very few, and those poor ones too, I am afraid we can get little among them; whereas ignorance will take in most of the great fortunes in the kingdom.—Fielding.
For ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training is a much greater misfortune.—Plato.
No power can exterminate the seeds of liberty when it has germinated in the blood of brave men. Our religion of to-day is still that of martyrdom; to-morrow it will be the religion of victory.—Mazzini.
Leisure.—"Never less idle than when idle," was the motto which the admirable Vittoria Colonna wrought upon her husband's dressing-gown. And may we not justly regard our appreciation of leisure as a test of improved character and growing resources?—Tuckerman.
Leisure is gone; gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow wagons, and the peddlers who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons.—George Eliot.
Libels.—Undoubtedly the good fame of every man ought to be under the protection of the laws, as well as his life and liberty and property. Good fame is an outwork that defends them all and renders them all valuable. The law forbids you to revenge; when it ties up the hands of some, it ought to restrain the tongues of others.—Burke.
If it was a new thing, it may be I should not be displeased with the suppression of the first libel that should abuse me; but, since there are enough of them to make a small library, I am secretly pleased to see the number increased, and take delight in raising a heap of stones that envy has cast at me without doing me any harm.—Balzac.
Liberty.—Liberty is the right to do what the laws allow; and if a citizen could do what they forbid, it would be no longer liberty, because others would have the same powers.—Montesquieu.
If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or another, in some place or another, the volcano will break out and flame to heaven.—Daniel Webster.
Interwoven is the love of liberty with every ligament of the heart.—Washington.