“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”

“But this momentous question. Like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.”

“Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I have steadfastly believed.”

“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”

“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.”

“How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.”

“If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden…But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

“Advertisements… contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.”

“May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.”

“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.”

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.”

“Walking is the very best exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.”

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”

“If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.”

“Was the government to prescribe us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”

“There is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

“Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.”

“No people who are ignorant can be truly free.”

“Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.”

“Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.”

“Self-love is no part of morality. Indeed it is exactly its counterpart. It is the sole antagonist of virtue leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.”

“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”

“Freedom, the first-born of science.”

“Follow truth wherever it may lead you.”

“Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.”

“Of all machines, the human heart is the most complicated and inexplicable.”

“A machine for making revolutions is doing precisely the wrong thing at just the right time.”

“The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk. But divert your attention by the objects surrounding you.”

“Nobody is better than you and remember, you are better than nobody.”

“It is the duty of every American citizen to take part in a vigorous debate on the issues of the day.”

“Every generation needs a new revolution.”

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.”

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”

“Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.”

“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”

“The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms. ”

“What a lot of things there are a man can do without.”

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”

“Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.”

“I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.”

“To find yourself, think for yourself. ”

“Know thyself.”

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”

“If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.”

“Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.”

“They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.”

“One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.”