“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” 

“It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterward.”

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

“Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.”

“I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.”

“Without books, I would certainly die.”

“I hope we shall ... crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.”

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” 

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

“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”

“A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not an article for mere consumption, but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.”