The plough is to the farmer what the wand is to the sorcerer. Its effect is really like sorcery.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.... Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged.... Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them.

He wove those three threads into a talk ranging from annually spending a week at Halloween as a child collecting candy to giving candy to hundreds of children at Halloween as an adult; from childhood assistance he received from adults, particularly after his parents divorced, to saying I challenge you to be a caring adult in someone's life ... Great times call forth great leaders.

I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.