These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government.

A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men?

The only chance for much intellectual improvement in the female sex, was to be found in the families of the educated class and in occasional intercourse with the learned.

When he is wounded, I bleed. {page 262 of John Adams}

Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex.

The Character which a youth acquires in the early part of his Life is of great importance towards his future prosperity-one false step may prove irretrievable to his future usefulness.