Man has been adjudged a social animal.

No man can see his own prejudices...

How are men to be secured in any rights without instruction; how to be secured in the equal exercise of those rights without equality of instruction? By instruction understand me to mean knowledge – just knowledge; not talent, not genius, not inventive mental powers.

All learning is useful, all the sciences are curious, all the arts are beautiful; but the most useful, most curious and most beautiful is perfect knowledge and perfect government of oneself.

It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one half of our race, and that half by far the most important and influential.

To give liberty to a slave before he understands its value is, perhaps, rather to impose a penalty than to bestow a blessing...

Do we exert our own liberties without injury to others – we exert them justly; do we exert them at the expense of others – unjustly. And, in thus doing, we step from the sure platform of liberty upon the uncertain threshold of tyranny.

I am neither Jew nor Gentile, Mohammedan nor Theist; I am but a member of the human family, and would accept of truth by whomsoever offered -- that truth which we can all find, if we will but seek in things, not in words; in nature, not in human imagination; in our own hearts, not in temples made with hands.

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.

Equality! Where is it, if not in education? Equal rights! They cannot exist without equality of instruction.