We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.

Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life.

The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled under foot.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love, and these have no sure root but in the religion of Jesus Christ.

No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.