A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.

Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.

If ever this free people, if this Government itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come from this incessant human wriggle and struggle for office, which is but a way to live without work.

We cannot but believe that He who made the world still governs it.

What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.

I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. ... I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me... These are not, however, the days of miracles ... I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.