The surest way to reveal one's character is not through adversity but by giving them power.

Should my administration prove to be a very wicked one...or a very foolish one, if you, the people, are true to yourselves and the Constitution, there is little harm I can do, thank God.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

The human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control.

That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed, and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all, to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.

To read in the Bible, as the word of God himself, that "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, ["] and to preach there-from that, "In the sweat of other mans faces shalt thou eat bread," to my mind can scarcely be reconciled with honest sincerity.

You can have anything you want, if you want it badly enough.