Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.

Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.

If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.

By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.

Slavery...dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.

Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.

Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.