We must consult our means rather than our wishes.

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country. - March 15, 1783

Speak not evil of the absent for it is unjust.

What was done with the seed saved from the India Hemp last summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sewn again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have disseminated the seed to others; as it is more valuable than the common Hemp.

It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe without the agency of a Supreme Being.

Your love of liberty -- your respect for the laws -- your habits of industry -- and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.

No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.