Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself -my disgust at her barbarity -clumsiness -darkness -bitter mockery of herself -is the most desolating.

The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.

Give me some mud off a city crossing, some ochre out of a gravel pit and a little whitening and some coal dust and I will paint you a luminous picture if you give me time to gradate my mud and subdue my dust.

All great song, from the first day when human lips contrived syllables, has been sincere song.

There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation of His presence in gunpowder.

There are many religions, but there is only one morality.

... the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever.