Honesty is the best policy, says the familiar axiom; but people who are honest on that principle defraud no one but themselves.

I admitted, that the world had existed millions of years. I am astonished at the ignorance of the masses on these subjects. Hugh Miller has it right when he says that 'the battle of evidences must now be fought on the field of the natural sciences.'

There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States.

There are times in the history of men and nations, when they stand so near the vale that separates mortals from the immortals, time from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost hear the beatings, and feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite.

I never meet a ragged boy in the street without feeling that i may owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned up under his coat.

[I]t would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of revenues of the nation or of the States to the support of sectarian schools.

Monuments may be builded to express the affection or pride of friends, or to display their wealth, but they are only valuable for the characters which they perpetuate.