We owe almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.

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.

As a traveler, I've often found that the more a culture differs from my own, the more I am struck by its essential humanity.

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going to fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.

My career in Congress is a story of before Sandy Hook and after Sandy Hook.

The minute you get too big to mop a floor or wipe a counter, that's the exact minute you have life f**ked up.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

A person may rightfully be happy if in this life he could do a great favor for widows and orphans, could assist support than, and facilitate fate of people.

God's end is to enable me to see that he can walk on the chaos of my life just now.

Prayer is a grace through which we pour ourselves out before God and through which He calls us into His presence.

I'm not really that interested in pandering to an audience of people that are going to judge me before they hear me. If they hear it and don't like it, that's totally fine.