Since The General Or Prevailing Opinion On

I Know Tolerably Well What Ireland Was, But Have A Very Imperfect Idea Of What Ireland Is.

No One Can Be A Great Thinker Who Does Not Recognize That As A Thinker It Is His First Duty To Follow His Intellect To Whatever Conclusions It May Lead.

When The People Are Too Much Attached To Savage Independence, To Be Tolerant Of The Amount Of Power To Which It Is For Their Good That They Should Be Subject, The State Of Society Is Not Yet Ripe For Representative Government.

The Beliefs Which We Have Most Warrant For Have No Safeguard To Rest On But A Standing Invitation To The Whole World To Prove Them Unfounded. If The Challenge Is Not Accepted, Or Is Accepted And The Attempt Fails, We Are Far Enough From Certainty Still; But We Have Done The Best That The Existing State Of Human Reason Admits Of; We Have Neglected Nothing That Could Give The Truth A Chance Of Reaching Us.

The Test Of Real And Vigorous Thinking, The Thinking Which Ascertains Truths Instead Of Dreaming Dreams, Is Successful Application To Practice.