“The state of man’s mind, or the elementary phase of mind which he so far possesses, conforms precisely to the state of the world as he so far views it.”

Should we not be concerned as to whether this fear of error is not just the error itself?

People who are too fastidious towards the finite never reach actuality, but linger in abstraction, and their light dies away.

Wickedness also resides in the gaze that perceives itself as innocent and surrounded by wickedness.

Education is the art of making man ethical.

When we look at the world rationally, the world looks rationally back.

The spirit is never at rest but always engaged in ever progressive motion, in giving itself a new form.

When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.

To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.

The important question of how poverty can be remedied is one which agitates and torments modern societies especially.

Propounding peace and love without practical or institutional engagement is delusion, not virtue.

Art is the sensuous presentation of ideas.

The one who merely flees is not yet free. In fleeing he is still conditioned by that from which he flees.

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.

Every consciousness pursues the death of the other.

America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s History shall reveal itself.

What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.

I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was on of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.

The same man cannot well be skilled in everything; each has his special excellence.

I am only an average man, but by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.

God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.

If religion had a good purpose, then man would have created something great. But we’re man: we mess up everything. We mess up nature. We mess up God. We take what is given to us and make it into what we think it should be.