“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

“We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.”

“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.”

“If you want something you've never had You must be willing to do something you've never done.” 

“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.

“If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”

“Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility” 

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

“It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.”

“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”

“Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”

“The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.”

“Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.”

“...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.”

“Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.”