Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty, confiding to the honest, rough to the ruffian, and a thunderbolt to the liar. But in all this, never be unmindful of your own dignity.

Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!

I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.

These men are all talk; What is needed is action - action!

I don't think the people of the slave states will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other argument is resorted to other than moral persuasion.

Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!

The United States is a place where the men govern, but the women rule.

I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day.

The intent and not the deed Is in our power; and, therefore, who dares greatly Does greatly.

Holiness does not consist in mystic speculations, enthusiastic fervours, or uncommanded austerities; it consists in thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills.

The same eye cannot both look up to heaven and down to earth.

Violence is the power of the state

Don't just bargain for success. Pay the price!

Three things will make you happy: always have happy thoughts, be honest to yourself, and express unconditional love for everything.

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

Money for me has only one sound: liberty.

Christianity is a metaphysics of the hangman.

Everybody should write a book whether you get it published or not because the experience of sort of taking it all and throwing it down on paper is unbelievably cathartic.

And, indeed, this is one of the greatest mysteries in the world; namely, that a righteousness that resides in heaven should justify me, a sinner on earth!

We can use doubt to self analyze. A measure of doubt can help us to attain self-honesty. But, like too much water, too much doubt will also destroy us.

The only reason I didn't kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn't decide which one to jumo into.