[I] put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!

What citizens of a free country would listen to any offers of good and skillful administration in return for the abdication of freedom?

The triumph of the Confederacy... would be a victory for the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the sprits of its friends all over the civilized world... [The American Civil War] is destined to be a turning point, for good or evil, of the course of human affairs.

There is a very real evil consequent on ascribing supernatural origin to the received maxilms of morality. That origin consecrates the whole of them and protects them from being discussed or criticized.

Trade is a social act.

With equality of experience and of general faculties, a woman usually sees much more than a man of what is immediately before her.

The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be rooted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle. The very corner-stone of an education intended to form great minds, must be the recognition of the principle, that the object is to call forth the greatest possible quantity of intellectual power, and to inspire the intensest love of truth.