You and I are now nearly in middle age, and have not yet become soured and shrivelled with the wear and tear of life. Let us pray to be delivered from that condition where life and nature have no fresh, sweet sensations for us.

The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.

Individuals may wear for a time the glory of our institutions, but they carry it not to the grave with them. Like raindrops from heaven, they may pass through the circle of the shining bow and add to its luster; but when they have sunk in the earth again, the proud arch still spans the sky and shines gloriously on.

Ideas are the great warriors of the world, and a war that has no idea behind it, is simply a brutality.

The sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.

It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.

Heroes did not make our liberties; they but reflected and illustrated them.