Liberty will not descend to a people. A people must raisethemselves to liberty. It is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

Character, simply stated, is doing what you say you’re going to do.

there’s more to liberation than trying to avoid discomfort, more to lasting happiness than pursuing temporary pleasures, temporary relief.

Come with me," Reyn said. "I want to show you something." Frankly, I had expected something more original. "Really?" I asked, "That's it? That's what you came up with?

Try to help people rather than focusing on what's in it for me.

I just have to think of Philadelphia now, and I get ideas, I hear the wind, and I'm off into the darkness somewhere.

Anything you attend to carefully can bring blessing.

The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital.

When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with His presence.

When people are nasty, it gets everybody's attention, and it gives them a name.

Do your part, but stop trying to steer your destiny. You're not in charge.