“Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting”

“Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

“The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings”

“Our society has traded strength of character for makeovers that deceive.”

“Bear it in mind that tomorrow must also have its own brand of assignments. Shifting today’s work to tomorrow is an inevitable step towards massing up difficult tasks for yourself, whose risk of leading into failure is high.”

“Tanda kecerdasan sejati bukanlah pengetahuan tapi imajinasi.”

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it.”

“What can you ever really know of other people's souls — of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole of creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him.”

“Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there”

“One cannot worship the false god of nationalism and the God of Christianity at the same time. .”

“To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.” —Letter to John Norvell, 14 June 1807 [Works 10:417--18]” 

“It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.”

“The worst ever offence you can commit against your time is to think that “time spent making plans is time being wasted!” Leaders don’t think that way!”

“Love is grieved at injustice.”