My heart trembles when I reflect that God is just

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

To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens...this brings us to the point at which are to commence the higher branches of education . . . . To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order.

War...is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

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

The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters.