No culture in human history ever suffered because its people became too reasonable or too desirous of having evidence in defense of their core beliefs.

There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

No atrocity was ever committed because people were being too reasonable, too skeptical, or too independently minded.

A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

In religious matters a traveller loses nothing by civility.

No people could despise its own language, customs, and institutions and hope to avoid national death.

I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness.

No person's gain in wisdom is diminished by anyone else's gain.

...empires and civilizations do not collapse because of deficiencies on the military or the political levels.

No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

This could never be a crime in any society which deems itself enlightened.

Civilization isn’t built by pessimists.

Nobody ever made a grammatical error in a non-literate society. (p. 271)

Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.