Human passions unbridled by morality and religion...would break the stronges cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact.

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.

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

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.