I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.

The soil is the gift of God to the living.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

I was dupedby the Secretary of the treasury [Alexander Hamilton], and made a fool for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood by me; and of all the errors of my political life, this has occasioned the deepest regret.

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption - a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible.