“It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived.”

It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.

It may be laid down as a general rule, that no woman who hath any great pretensions to admiration is ever well pleased in a company where she perceives herself to fill only the second place.

Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, Sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom.

Wicked companions invite us to hell.

To the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them.

It hath been often said, that it is not death, but dying, which is terrible.

He grew weary of this condescension, and began to treat the opinions of his wife with that haughtiuess and insolence, which none but those who deserve some contempt themselves can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.

Domestic happiness is the end of almost all our pursuits, and the common reward of all our pains. When men find themselves forever barred from this delightful fruition, they are lost to all industry, and grow careless of all their worldly affairs. Thus they become bad subjects, bad relations, bad friends, and bad men.

Money is the fruit of evil, as often as the root of it.

We endeavor to conceal our vices under the disguise of the opposite virtues.

O innocence, how glorious and happy a portion art thou to the breast that possesses thee! thou fearest neither the eyes nor the tongues of men. Truth, the most powerful of all things, is thy strongest friend; and the brighter the light is in which thou art displayed, the more it discovers thy transcendent beauties.

Nothing more aggravates ill success than the near approach of good.

Some virtuous women are too liberal in their insults to a frail sister; but virtue can support itself without borrowing any assistance from the vices of other women.

All nature wears one universal grin.

Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller, who always proportions his stay in any place.

There is scarcely any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself.

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.

When you look at where the real problems are among minorities in our society, particularly blacks, it’s at the bottom. It’s the people who are in school systems that don’t educate, neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime, drugs, the whole bit.

My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who were industrious. They were frugal.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.

Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

It really bugs me that someone will tell me, after I spent 20 years being educated, how I’m supposed to think.

The whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me, and I am not hard to swindle because I do not know how to read and write.

Racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional. All provisions of federal, state or local law requiring or permitting such discrimination must yield to this principle.