What but education has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbors? And what chains them to their present state of barbarism and wretchedness but a bigoted veneration for the supposed superlative wisdom of their fathers and the preposterous idea that they are to look backward for better things and not forward, longing, as it should seem, to return to the days of eating acorns and roots rather than indulge in the degeneracies of civilization?

The people are not always well-informed, but is better that they have misconceptions that make them restless than that they be lethargic-for lethargy in the people means death for republics.

Our ancestors ... possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice has placed them.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Our minds and hearts are free to believe everything or nothing at all - and it is our duty to protect and perpetuate this sacred culture of freedom.

Never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another.

Never use two words when one will do.