"The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions."

"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."

"The greatest good in a democracy is that every man is a king."

"We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing."

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."