A native of America who cannot read or write is . . . as rare as a comet or an earthquake.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact.

I consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for public service.

What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels, condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are the forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because suspected of heresy? Remember the 'index expurgatorius', the inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter and the guillotine.

Ideology is the science of idiots.

There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.

Those who trade liberty for security have neither.