I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little have been tried.

We cannot put a noose around another man's neck without first hanging ourselves.

Politics is but a narrow field.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.

Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.