I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, and then profit by their measures.

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker, in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

The power of making war often prevents it.

The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.

Of all the cankers of human happiness none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful an influence, as indolence.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Exercise and application produce order in our affairs, health of body, cheerfulness of mind, and these make us precious to our friends