The only greater [evil] than separation... [is] living under a government of discretion.

Perfection in wisdom, as well as in integrity, is neither required nor expected in these agents (public servants). It belongs not to man. The wise know too well their weaknesses to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.

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

You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts.

Every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of god.

We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities.

The instability of our laws is really an immense evil. I think it would be well to provide in our constitutions that there shall always be a twelve-month between the ingross-ing a bill & passing it: that it should then be offered to its passage without changing a word: and that if circum-stances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two thirds of both houses instead of a bare majority.