For it is fixed principle with me, that whatever is done should be done well.

Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.

A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

I will move gently down the stream of life until I sleep with my fathers.

I am once more seated under my own vine and fig tree ... and hope to spend the remainder of my days in peaceful retirement, making political pursuits yield to the more rational amusement of cultivating the earth.

It is our policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.