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

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

Of distinction by birth or badge, [Americans] had no more idea than they had of the mode of existence in the moon or planets. They had heard only that there were such, and knew that they must be wrong.

You have lived longer than I have and perhaps may have formed a different judgment on better grounds; but my observations do not enable me to say I think integrity the characteristic of wealth. In general I believe the decisions of the people, in a body, will be more honest and more disinterested than those of wealthy men.

The law for religious freedom... [has]put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.

I deplore with you the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them. ... This has in a great degree been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit.

The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.