The best and most telling speech is not the actual impromptu one but the counterfeit of it.

Consider the average intelligence of the common man, then realize 50% are even stupider.

Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know what a palladium is, but I am sure it is a good thing!

It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art... Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes.

Of the demonstrably wise there are but two: those who commit suicide, & those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied with drink.

The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes, but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind.

Herschel removed the speckled tent-roof from the world and exposed the immeasurable deeps of space, dim-flecked with fleets of colossal suns sailing their billion-leagued remoteness.