Knowledge and goodness, his attributes, are infinite; nor can man hope, in any lapse of time, to comprehend this immensity.

In the infinitude of the universe, he will seem, like Newton, with all his acquisitions, only to have gathered a few pebbles by the seaside.

As in Geometry the asymptote constantly approaches its curve, so that the distance between them is constantly diminishing, and yet, though prolonged indefinitely, they never meet, so, according to him, are infinite souls the asymptotes of…

I would not disparage the triumphs of the ancient mind.

The eloquence, the poetry, the philosophy, the art, of Athens still survive, and bear no mean sway upon earth.

Rome, too, yet lives in her jurisprudence, which, next after Christianity, has exerted a paramount influence over the laws of modern communities.

The people were ignorant, vicious, and poor, or degraded to abject slavery,--itself the sum of all injustice and all vice.

Even the most illustrious characters, whose names still shine from that distant night, were little more than splendid barbarians.

Architecture, sculpture, painting, and vases of exquisite perfection attest an appreciation of beauty in form; but our masters in these things were strangers to the useful arts, as to the comforts and virtues of home.

Without knowledge there can be no sure Progress.

Vice and barbarism are the inseparable companions of ignorance.

Nor is it too much to say, that, except in rare instances, the highest virtue is attained only through intelligence.

This is natural; for to do right, we must first understand what is right.

The sublime teachings of Plato and Socrates--calculated in many respects to promote the best interests of the race--were limited in influence to a small company of listeners, or to the few who could obtain a copy of the costly manuscripts…

Thus the knowledge and virtue acquired by individuals were not diffused in their own age or secured to posterity.

Now, at last, through an agency all unknown to Antiquity, knowledge of every kind has become general and permanent.

It can no longer be confined to a select circle.

It cannot be crushed by tyranny, or lost by neglect.

It is immortal as the soul from which it proceeds.

The Press, watchful with more than the hundred eyes of Argus, strong with more than the hundred arms of Briareus, not only guards all the conquests of civilization, but leads the way to future triumphs.

Through its untiring energies, the meditation of the closet, or the utterance of the human voice, which else would die away within the precincts of a narrow room, is prolonged to the most distant nations and times, with winged words…

We admire the genius of Demosthenes, Sophocles, Plato, and Phidias; but the printing-press is a higher gift to man than the eloquence, the drama, the philosophy, and the art of Greece.

So are we all knit together, that words of wisdom and truth, which first sway the hearts of the American people, may help to elevate benighted tribes of the most distant regions.

The vexed question of modern science, whether these races proceeded originally from one stock, does not interfere with the sublime revelation of Christianity, the Brotherhood of Man.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.