Telling the future by looking at the past assumes that conditions remain constant. This is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

It is the theory that decides what we can observe.

Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.

The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.

I do not want to die. . . until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown.

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

Men are rewarded or punished not for what they do but for how their acts are defined. That is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves.