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.

An industrious farmer occupies a more dignified place in the scale of beings...than a lazy lounger...too proud to work, and drawing out a miserable existence by eating on that surplus of other men's labor.

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

The more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained.

When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.

It is (our) duty . . . to pay especial attention to the principles of government which shall be inculcated therein (at the University), and to provide that none shall be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitutions of this State, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion; and for this purpose it may be necessary to point out specially where these principles are to be found legitimately developed.