The independence of all political and other bother...

Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority.

Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself indeed, it seems to execute itself.

I am less disposed to think of a West Point education as requisite for this business than I was at first. Good sense and energy are the qualities required.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.

You get to a certain age where you prepare yourself for happiness. Sometimes you never remember to actually get happy.

I learned from a very young age that if I pursued the things that truly excited me, that they would reward in more important ways, like happiness.