Every student must be a gentleman.

Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?

It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.

I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.

Life Insurance trusts I consider sacred. To hazard the property of the dead & to lose the scanty earnings of fathers & husbands, who have toiled & saved that they may leave something to their families deprived of their care & the support of their labour, is to my mind the worst of crimes.

You see what a poor sinner I am, and how unworthy to possess what was given me; for that reason it has been taken away.

What a glorious world Almighty God has given us. How thankless and ungrateful we are, and how we labor to mar his gifts.