I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing, that no man desires for himself.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens.

Your good mother tells me you are feeling very badly in your new situation. Allow me to assure you it is a perfect certainty that you will, very soon, feel better - quite happy - if you only stick to the resolution you have taken to procure a military education.... On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.

A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started ... the fate of humanity is in his hands.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.