Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life.

The home is the chief school of human virtues.

Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.

An earnest purpose finds time, or makes it. It seizes on spare moments, and turns fragments to golden account.

The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny. . . . In war, then, as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press. Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and privileges.

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.