“I am in favor of hanging the Ten Commandments in every schoolroom in the country so young people can know the difference between right and wrong. They don’t know the difference and we’re seeing the evidence of that all around us every day.”

“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”

“For I was envious of the foolish and arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. PSALM 73:3”

“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

“Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known.”

“By just being positive, having the best perspective on everything, and always believing the best of everybody, we release peace and joy in our lives.”

“Is the consideration of a little dirty pelf, to individuals, to be placed in competition with the essential rights & liberties of the present generation, & of millions yet unborn? shall a few designing men for their own aggrandizement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset the goodly fabric we have been rearing at the expence of so much time, blood, & treasure? and shall we at last become the victems of our own abominable lust of gain? Forbid it heaven! forbid it all, & every state in the union! by enacting & enforcing, efficatious laws for checking the growth of these monstrous evils, & restoring matters in some degree to the pristine state they were in at the commencement of the War. Our cause is noble. It is the cause of Mankind! and the danger to it springs from ourselves—Shall we slumber & sleep then while we should be punishing those miscreants who have brought these troubles upon us, & who are aiming to continue us in them? While we should be striving to fill our Battalions—and devising ways and means to appreciate the currency—On the credit of which every thing depends? I hope not—let vigorous measures be adopted—not to limit the price of articles—for this I conceive is inconsistent with the very nature of things, & impracticable in itself—but to punish speculators—forestallers—& extortioners—and above all—to sink the money by heavy Taxes—To promote public & private Œconomy—encourage Manufactures &ca—Measures of this sort gone heartily into by the several states will strike at once at the root of all our misfortunes, & give the coup-de-grace to British hope of subjugating this great Continent, either by their Arms or their Arts—The first as I have before observed they acknowledge is unequal to the task—the latter I am sure will be so if we are not lost to every thing that is good & virtuous.”

“The Bible is not an option; it is a necessity. You cannot grow spiritually strong without it.”

“Jesus did not leave Peter to drown just because he had done fine for a while and then made a mistake.”

“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”

“I do not expect old heads on young shoulders.”

“Only when it is dark enough can we see the stars.”

“Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it."

“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”

“He had nothing to start with, except the capacity to know what he wanted, and the determination to stand by that desire until he realized it.”