Every citizen of the republic ought to consider himself an unofficial policeman, and keep unsalaried watch and ward over the laws and their execution

There is no end to the laws, and no beginning to the execution of them

There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it / and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again / and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue

Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat.
- Notebook, 1894