To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.

I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations, in examples of justice and liberality.

What is most important of this grand experiment, the United States? Not the election of the first president but the election of its second president. The peaceful transition of power is what will separate this country from every other country in the world.

There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can exist apart from religious principle.

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

[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.