The public history of all countries, and all ages, is but a sort of mask, richly colored. The interior working of the machinery must be foul.

Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth.

To believe that everyone is honest is folly, but to believe that no one is honest is worse.

I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.

The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.

Who but shall learn that freedom is the prize Man still is bound to rescue or maintain; That nature's God commands the slave to rise, And on the oppressor's head to break the chain. Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, Till not a slave shall on this earth by found.

The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.