“Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.”

“Virtue is indeed its own noblest reward; yet the dead find it sweet, when the fame of their lives is remembered among the living and oblivion does not swallow up their praises.”
Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces; dulce tamen venit ad manis, cum gratia vitae durat apud superos nec edunt oblivia laudem.

“743. As Virtue is its own Reward, so Vice is its own Punishment.”

“Composition is a side issue. Its role in my selection of photographs is a negative one at best. By which I mean that the fascination of a photograph is not in its eccentric composition but in what it has to say: its information content. And, on the other hand, composition always also has its own fortuitous rightness.”

“That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.”

“Liberalism, for all its virtues, has begun to develop a sense of entitlement, and needs time to rediscover its soul.”

“Again I admonish you not to be turned from your stern purpose of defending your beloved country and its free institutions by any arguments urged by ambitious and designing men, but stand fast to the Union and the old flag. Soldiers, I bid you God-speed to your homes.”

“[Atheism] believes that truth for truth's sake is the highest ideal and that virtue is its own reward.”

“The greatest and noblest conceptions have no image wrought plainly for human vision, which he who wishes to satisfy the mind of the inquirer can apply to some one of his senses and by mere exhibition satisfy the mind. We must therefore endeavor by practice to acquire the power of giving and understanding a rational definition of each one of them; for immaterial things, which are the noblest and greatest, can be exhibited by reason only, and it is for their sake that all we are saying is said. But it is always easier to practice in small matters than in greater ones.”

“The truth has its own virtue, which is separate from its content.”