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.

If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.

My God! My God! What will the country say?

If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.

One's only security in life comes from doing something uncommonly well.

The greatest lessons I have every learned were at my mother's knees... All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

Washington's is the mightiest name of earth - long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor leave it shining on.