“Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.”

“Do not teach your children never to be angry; teach them how to be angry.”

“A good book is a good friend. He will talk to you if you want him to talk, but will shut up if you don't want him to talk. - A library is a collection of good friends.”

“Doubtless, the life of an Irregular is hard; but the interests of the Greater Number require that it shall be hard.”

“The woman had practiced patience all the long days of her life, exercised it to such an extent it had become the strongest muscle of her soul.”

“The imported discovery, that human nature is too good to be made better by discipline, that children are enticed from the right way by religious instruction, and driven from it by the rod, and kept in thraldom by the conspiracy of priests and legislators, has united not a few in the noble experiment of emancipating the world by the help of an irreligious, ungoverned progeny. The indolent have rejoiced in the discovery that our fathers were fools and bigots, and have cheerfully let loose their children to help on the glorious work; while thousands of families, having heard from their teachers, or believing, in spite of them, that morality will suffice both for earth and heaven, and not doubting that morality will flourish without religion, have either not reared the family altar, or have put out the sacred fire, and laid aside together the rod and the Bible, as superfluous auxiliaries in the education of children. From the school, too, with pious regard for its sacred honors, the Bible, by some, has been withdrawn, lest, by a too familiar knowledge of its contents, children should learn to despise it; as if ignorance were the mother of devotion, and the efficacy of laws depended upon their not being understood.”

“[W]alking sometimes in a perfectly desolate plain where there have been no houses nor trees to guide me, I have been occasionally compelled to remain stationary for hours together, waiting till the rain came before continuing my journey.”