It has been said that a man of genius should select his ancestors with great care - and yet there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. The children of the great are often small.
Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.
Commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.
What is it that distinguishes you and me from the lower animals - from the beasts? More, I say, than anything else, human sympathy - human sympathy.
In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.
My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.
Suspicion is only another form of cowardice. The man who suspects constantly suspects because he is afraid. Whenever you find a man with a free, frank, generous, brave nature, you will find that man without suspicion.
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.
Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.
The great poet is a great artist. He is painter and sculptor. The greatest pictures and statues have been painted and chiseled with words. They outlast all others.
In my judgment, the American people are too brave, too charitable, too generous, too magnanimous, to believe in the infamous dogma of an eternal hell.
A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.
Voltaire, as full of life as summer is full of blossoms, giving his ideas upon all subjects at the expense of prince and king, was exiled to England.
Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book and creed and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free.
Voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.
The doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. We love; therefore, we wish to live.
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light.
Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for itself.
There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise.
The truth is that nearly everybody is right about some things and wrong about most things; and if a man's testimony is not to be taken until he is right on every subject, witnesses will be extremely scarce.
When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.
In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.
The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.
Every religion in the world has denounced every other religion as a fraud. That proves to me that they all tell the truth - about others.
No writer must be measured by a word or paragraph. He is to be measured by his work - by the tendency, not of one line, but by the tendency of all.
Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
The walls of that grand edifice called a good character have to be worked at during life.
There is no common sense in going to the field to fight and leaving a man at home to undo all that you accomplish.
Liberty is the breath of progress.
This great question of predestination and free will, of free moral agency and accountability, and being saved by the grace of God, and damned for the glory of God, have occupied the mind of what we call the civilized world for many centuries.
A prayer that must have a cannon behind it better never be uttered. Forgiveness ought not to go in partnership with shot and shell. Love need not carry knives and revolvers.
I believe in living for this world - that's my doctrine - to make everybody happy that you can.
I will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition, then I will go to hell with my reason rather than to heaven without it.
The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar - his life has been a success.
Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished.
A good way to make children tell the truth is to tell it yourself. Keep your word with your child the same as you would with your banker.
Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.
Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.
The more liberty you give away the more you will have.
There are times when a falsehood well told bridges over quite a difficulty, but in the long run, you had better tell the truth, even if you swim the creek.
Whether there is another life or not, if there is any being who gave me this, I shall thank him from the bottom of my heart, because, upon the whole, my life has been a joy.
Man never had an idea - man will never have an idea, except those supplied to him by his surroundings. Every idea in the world that man has came to him by nature.
It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody, for Music is the voice of Love.
The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
