Memory is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the spendthrift.

Crimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes were committed to prevent crimes. The world has been filled with prisons and dungeons, with chains and whips, with crosses and gibbets, with thumbscrews and racks, with hangmen and heads-men — and yet these frightful means and instrumentalities have committed far more crimes than they have prevented.... Ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. As long as dishonorable success outranks honest effort — as long as society bows and cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to fill the jails.

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.

Either god should have written a book to fit my brain, or he should have made my brain to fit his book.

Christianity has made more lunatics than it ever provided asylums for.

Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world, and love is the only thing that will pay ten percent to both borrower and lender.

Liberty is the breath of progress.