None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens . . . There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.

Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is in their interest to go to war.

Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people.

One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.