I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel, very hard to scratch any thing on it and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, . . . nor of torture to extort confessions.

It is my pleasure that my children are free and happy, and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents.

I am for liberty of conscience in its noblest, broadest, and highest sense. But I cannot give liberty of conscience to the pope and his followers, the papists, so long as they tell me, through all their councils, theologians, and canon laws that their conscience orders them to burn my wife, strangle my children, and cut my throat when they find their opportunity.

All things desirable to men are contained in the Bible.

My old father used to have a saying: If you make a bad bargain, hug it all the tighter.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact.