Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

The worst day in a man's life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing.

The reflections that the boys of this age are to be the men of the next; that they should be prepared to receive the holy charge which we are cherishing to deliver over to them; that in establishing an institution of wisdom for them, we secure it to all our future generations; that in fulfilling this duty, we bring home to our own bosoms the sweet consolation of seeing our sons rising under a luminous tuition, to destinies of high promise; these are considerations which will occur to all.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.