It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.

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.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

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

If you think knowledge is dangerous, try ignorance