Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

It is among the evils, and perhaps not the smallest, of democratical governments, that the people must feel before they will see. When this happens they are roused to action. Hence it is that those kinds of government are so slow.

It is not the lowest priced goods that are always the cheapest - the quality is, or ought to be as much an object with the purchaser, as the price.

I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.

To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones.

Let no one go hungry away. If any of the kind of people should be in want of corn, supply their necessities, provided it does not encourage them in idleness.

[M]y wish is, that the Convention may adopt no temporizing expedient, but probe the defects of the Constitution [i.e., the Articles of Confederation] to the bottom, and provide radical cures.