The earth flourishes, or is overrun with noxious weeds and brambles, as we apply or withhold the cultivating hand. So fares it with the intellectual system of man.

False conclusions which have been reasoned out are infinitely worse than blind impulse.

Superiority to circumstances is one of the most prominent characteristics of great men.

Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.

Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former.

Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen.

Schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications.