Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.

Invisible things are the only realities; invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.

No maxim can be more pernicious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be able to bear.

Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.

Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius... he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.

Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides.