“Take things always by their smooth handle.”

“He who knows best knows how little he knows.”

“The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice the freedom asserted by the laws in theory.”

“I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”

“...never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. ... When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. ... Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.”

“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

“You are now old enough to know how very important to your future life will be the manner in which you employ your present time”

“I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions...but I know also that laws and constitutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.....”

“A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be.”

“All, all dead: and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know not us.”

“If Americans desire to be both ignorant and free, they want what never has been and what never will be.”

“I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living.”

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

“Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”