Nothing more surely cultivates and embellishes a man than association with refined and virtuous women.

Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.

The oppression of a majority is detestable and odious; the oppression of a minority is only by one degree less detestable and odious.

The errors of former times are recorded for our instruction in order that we may avoid their repition.

Good laws make it easier to do right and harder to do wrong.

Letter to the committee in charge of the celebration of the centennial of the American Constitution. I have always regarded that Constitution as the most remarkable work known to me in modern times to have been produced by the human intellect, at a single stroke (so to speak), in its application to political affairs.

I have known ninety-five of the world's great men in my time, and of these eighty-seven were followers of the Bible.