Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.

Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day

Read, think well of mankind, go to our libraries and rejoice.

Cultivate your garden. Do not depend upon teachers to educate you... follow your own bent, pursue your curiosity bravely, express yourself, make your own harmony.

So I should say that civilizations begin with religion and stoicism: they end with scepticism and unbelief, and the undisciplined pursuit of individual pleasure. A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.

There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.

by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them