We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.

To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.

Men think to mend their condition by a change of circumstances. They might as well hope to escape from their shadows.

Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society.

We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.

If you think you can temper yourself into manliness by sitting here over your books, it is the very silliest fancy that ever tempted a young man to his ruin. You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; [but] a creed is always sensitive.