If all my talents and powers were to be taken from me by some unscrutable Providence, and I had my choice of keeping but one, I would unhesitatingly ask for be allowed to keep the Power of Speaking, for through it I would quickly recover all the rest.

Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.

A representative form of government rests nor more on political contributions than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.

Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered.

The hand that destroys the Constitution rends our Union asunder forever.

There is not a more dangerous experiment than to place property in the hands of one class, and political power in those of another... If property cannot retain the political power, the political power will draw after it the property.

This is the Book. I have read the Bible through many times, and now make it a practice to read it through once every year. It is a book of all others for lawyers, as well as divines; and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and of rules for conduct. It fits man for life--it prepares him for death.