I carried $5000 when I went to Washington. I returned with barely $90 in our pockets.

Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people.

Without union our independence and liberty would never have been achieved; without union they can never be maintained. Divided into twenty-four, or even a smaller number, of separate communities, we shall see our internal trade burdened with numberless restraints and exactions; communications between distant points and sections obstructed or cut off; our sons made soldiers to deluge with blood the fields they now till in peace...The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty, and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union.

Freemasonry is an establishment founded on the benevolent intention of extending and conferring mutual happiness upon the best and truest principles of moral life and social virtue.

After eight years as President I have only two regrets: that I have not shot Henry Clay or hanged John C. Calhoun.

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another.

Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well.