I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection... and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacifick temper of the mind, which were the characteristicks of the divine Author of our blessed religion ; without an humble imitation of whose example, in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

The fundamental principle of our constitution ... enjoins the sense of command, duty that the will of the majority shall prevail.

[L]eave nothing to the uncertainty of procuring a warlike apparatus at the moment of public danger.

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it. I should be happy that my own experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be placed upon them.

99% of failures come from people who make excuses.

The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crises are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved.