No day should be lived unless it was begun with a prayer of thankfulness and an intercession for guidance.

I am of the opinion that all who can should vote for the most intelligent, honest, and conscientious men eligible to office, irrespective of former party opinions, who will endeavour to make the new constitutions and the laws passed under them as beneficial as possible to the true interests, prosperity, and liberty of all classes and conditions of the people.

It is glorious to see such courage in one so young.

My experiences of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them nor be indisposed to serve them: nor, in spite of failures which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge, or the present aspect of affairs, do I despair of the future. The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.

So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.

Go home all you boys who fought with me and help build up the shattered fortunes of our old state

All I ever wanted was a Virginia farm, no end of cream and fresh butter and fried chicken - not one fried chicken, or two, but unlimited fried chicken.