The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves.

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.

How many times have I laughed at you telling me plainly that I was too lazy to be anything but a lawyer.

There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.

Work, work, work, is the main thing.

I am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never espouse their quarrels on either side. My sincere wish is that both sides will allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present & future only.

To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any good government.