A country whose buildings are of wood, can never increase in its improvements to any considerable degree.... Whereas when buildings are of durable materials, every new edifice is an actual and permanent acquisition to the state, adding to its value as well as to its ornament.

God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men.

I leave the world and its affairs to the young and energetic, and resign myself to their care, of whom I have endeavored to take care when young.

Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.

The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam [to a carriage on wheels] will make a great change in the situation of man.

The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.