Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Historians relate, not so much what is done, as what they would have believed.

Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Every man gives his life for what he believes. Every woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe in little or nothing, nevertheless they give up their lives to that little or nothing. One life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it, and then it’s gone. But to surrender what you are, and live without belief - that’s more terrible than dying—more terrible than dying young.

All limitations are self-imposed.

People all over the nation are starved for honesty and common sense.

Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.

Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?

Look at the stars and not down at your own feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.

Common sense is the very antipodes of science.