Do not tell me that you have got to be rich! We have a false standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is all a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be powerful, to be happy. The happy man is the successful man. Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.Joy is wealth.

I would rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.

Any doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man.

If Jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a State Legislature, I think he ought to give it up.

It is with men as with other things. The mullein needs only a year, but the oak a century, and the greatest men are those who have continued to grow as long as they have lived.

It is perfectly delightful to take advantage of the conscientious labors of those who go through and through volume after volume, divide with infinite patience the gold from the dross, and present us with the pure and shining coin. Such men may be likened to bees who save us numberless journeys by giving us the fruit of their own.

There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women - of free mothers.