If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.

We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital.

Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. It is the ringing of an alarm bell, whose melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden, sharp cry of "Fire!" under our windows by night, it should rouse us to instantaneous action, and brace every muscle to its highest tension.

It would be more honourable to our distinguished ancestors to praise them in words less, but in deeds to imitate them more.

Knowledge is but an instrument, which the profligate and the flagitious may use as well as the brave and the just.

Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.

It is well, when the wise and the learned discover new truths; but how much better to diffuse the truths already discovered, amongst the multitude! Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power; and while a philosopher is discovering one new truth, millions may be propagated amongst the people. Diffusion, then, rather than discovery, is the duty of our government.