The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment.

Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations.

We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about: not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which by its essence, is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country.

A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.

No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.

I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.