It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth.

The happiest hours of my life have been spent in the flow of affection among friends.

As government grows, freedom recedes.

Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

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.