My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

The only greater [evil] than separation... [is] living under a government of discretion.

The general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands, and the strong allurements of great cities to those who have any turn for dissipation, threaten to make them here, as in Europe, the sinks of voluntary misery.

No society can make a perpetual constitution... The earth belongs always to the living generation.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. To give praise where it is not due, might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature.