Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth.

It is simple to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and private gain. It is more comfortable to sit content in the easy approval of friends and of neighbours than to risk the friction and the controversy that comes with public affairs. It is easier to fall in step with the slogans of others than to march to the beat of the internal drummer - to make and stand on judgements of your own. And it far easier to accept and to stand on the past, than to fight for the answers of the future

If all my possessions were taken from me with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication, for by it I would soon regain all the rest

There is no happiness, there is no liberty, there is no enjoyment of life, unless a man can say, when he rises in the morning, I shall be subject to the decision of no unwise judge today.

Let us thank God that we live in an age when something has influence besides the bayonet.

America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honored, there is a foundation for general security, general happiness, and the improvement and progress of our race.