Where the principle of difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided.

He, who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ.

It is more honorable to repair a wrong than to persist in it.

I do not know whether you are fond of chemical reading. There are some things in this science worth reading.

. . . in the full tide of successful experiment.

I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

War has been avoided from a due sense of the miseries, and the demoralization it produces, and of the superior blessings of a state of peace and friendship with all mankind.