My great wish is to go on in a strict but silent performance of my duty; to avoid attracting notice, and to keep my name out of the newspapers.

A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.

When the heart is right, the feet are swift.

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.

It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have been called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.

What we learn to do, we learn by doing.