The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.

I have lived temperately....I double the doctor's recommendation of a glass and a half wine each day and even treble it with a friend.

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

The principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government.

The genuine and simple religion of Jesus will one day be restored: such as it was preached and practiced by Himself.

When I contemplate the immense advances in science and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation, and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches.

When, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since his [Jesus'] day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples: and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from his lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian.