One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity

Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.

I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise man decline, others will not; if honest man refuse it, others will not.

A representative assembly, although extremely well qualified, and absolutely necessary, as a branch of the legislative, is unfit to exercise the executive power, for want of two essential properties, secrecy and dispatch.