As a general rule, it may be affirmed that the man who never intrigues for office may be most safely entrusted with office...Such a man cannot desire promotion unless he received it from the respectable part of the community, for he considers no other promotion to be honorable.

Discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, and religious duties.

The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.

Let the people have property and they will have power - a power that will forever be exerted to prevent the restriction of the press, the abolition of trial by jury, or the abridgment of any other privilege.

The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it.

The man who has half a million of dollars in property... has a much higher interest in the government, than the man who has little or no property.

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.