It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.

Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.

Good literature proceeds from men of natural probity, and since one ought rather to praise the inception than the result, you should give greater praise to a man of probity unskilled in letters than to one skilled in letters but devoid of probity.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

No man can always be right. So the struggle is to do one's best, to keep the brain and conscience clear, never be swayed by unworthy motives or inconsequential reasons, but to strive to unearth the basic factors involved, then do one's duty.

It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.