Take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it for yourself, and then all the world will love you.

The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union.

My general plan would be to make the States one as to everything connected with foreign nations and several as to everything purely domestic.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

While the principles of our Constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will deem embodied expressions of discontent and open outrages of law and patriotism as dishonorable as they are injurious

We need a revolution every 20 years just to keep government honest.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.