Virtue is harder to be got than a knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.

In the beginning all the World was America .

Let us suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience .

Words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him who uses them.

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

Truth, like gold, is not less so for being newly brought out of the mine.

To love truth for truth’s sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have.

It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.

Where there is no property there is no injustice.