I am without religious feeling.

A nation cannot afford to do a mean thing.

Moral excellence is the bright consummate flower of all progress.

Without knowledge there can be no sure progress. Vice and barbarism are the inseparable companions of ignorance. Nor is it too much to say that, except in rare instances, the highest virtue is attained only through intelligence.

There are two sorts of pity: one is a balm and the other a poison; the first is realized by our friends, the last by our enemies.

The true greatness of nations is in those qualities which constitute the greatness of the individual.

The highest greatness, surviving time and stone, is that which proceeds from the soul of man. Monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of court and the circumstance of war, in the lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers of truth, though poor and lowly, especially those whose example elevates human nature, and teaches the rights of man, so that "a government of the people, by the people, for the people, may not perish from the earth;" such a harbinger can never be forgotten, and their renown spreads co-extensive with the cause they served so well.