You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart

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

The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion of principle but that of gain

All authority belongs to the people

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes [Letter to von Humboldt, 1813]

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites

Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity

There is...an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents.... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world

I find as I grow older that I love those most whom I loved first