Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.

Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for SOME men to enslave OTHERS is a "sacred right of self-government." These principles can not stand together. They are as opposite as God and mammon; and whoever holds to the one, must despise the other.

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.

Honor is better than honors.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.

A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.

Peace will come soon to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure their cases and pay the costs.