Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

There is an indissoluble union between a magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.

I have the consolation to believe, that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.

It is one of the evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled, must often feel before they can act.

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.

It is much easier at all times to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes.

[The adoption of the Constitution] will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Providence as any possible event in the course of human affairs can ever designate it.