What right can give anyone authority to inflict torture upon a citizen when it is still unknown whether he is innocent or guilty?

Don't worry about things you cannot alter

To tempt, and to be tempted, are things very nearly allied, and, in spite of the finest maxims of morality impressed upon the mind, whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent its being excited.

I am one of the people who love the why of things.

Experience shows that the frequent use of severe punishment has never rendered a people better. The death of a criminal is a less effective means of restraining crimes than the permanent example of a man deprived of his liberty during the whole of his life to make amends for the injury he has done to the public.

I sincerely want peace, not because I lack resources for war, but because I hate bloodshed.

Tell a thousand people to draft a letter, let them debate every phrase, and see how long it takes and what you get.