Congress has scarcely any thing to employ them, and complain that the place [Washington, D.C.] is remarkably dull.

[I]t seems that the Cannibals of Europe are going to eat one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake; whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less for the world.

But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.

Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of [any difficult situation] in the easiest manner possible.

Truth can stand by itself...If there be but one right [religion], and [Christianity] that one, we should wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth.

What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.