I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.

It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.

I use no Porter ... in my family, but such as is made in America: both these articles may now be purchased of an excellent quality.

It has always been a source of serious reflection and sincere regret with me that the youth of the United States should be sent to foreign countries for the purpose of education. Although there are many who escape the danger of contracting principles unfavorable to republican governments, yet we ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds from being too strongly and too early prejudiced in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own.

It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.

The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in.

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.