The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.

The Bible must be considered as the great source of all the truth by which men are to be guided in government as well as in all social transactions.

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.

Any system of education...which limits instruction to the arts and sciences and rejects the aids of religion in forming the characters of citizens, is essentially defective.

To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the character and happiness of our citizens than any other improvements in our system of education.

The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society; the best book for regulating the temporal [secular] concerns of men.

The minds of youth are perpetually led to the history of Greece and Rime or to Great Britain; Boys are constantly repeating the declamations of Demosthenes and Cicero, or debates upon some political question in the British Parliament.