I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it is what I have steadfastly believed.

We see the wisdom of Solon's remark, that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear.

The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

We owe gratitude to France, justice to England, good will to all, and subservience to none ... it was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.