The thinking part of mankind do not form their judgment from events; and their equity will ever attach equal glory to those actions which deserve success, and those which have been crowned with it.
Precedents are dangerous things; let the rein of government then be braced and held with a steady hand.
The pure and benign light of revelation has had a meliorating influence on mankind.
The friendship I have conceived will not be impaired by absence; but it may be no unpleasing circumstance to brighten the chain by a renewal of the covenant.
Influence is not government.
It is among the evils, and perhaps not the smallest, of democratical governments, that the people must feel before they will see. When this happens they are roused to action. Hence it is that those kinds of government are so slow.
It is to be lamented that great characters are seldom without a blot.
If we mean to support the liberty and independence which has cost us so much blood and treasure to establish, we must drive far away the demon of party spirit and local reproach.
There is an indissoluble union between a magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.
Providence has done, and I am persuaded is disposed to do, a great deal for us; but we are not to forget the fable of Jupiter and the countryman.
It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.
Without a humble imitation of the divine Author of our blessed religion we can never hope to be a happy nation.
Submit your sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial style, though it may carry conviction, is always accompanied with disgust.
It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy-this applies to public as well as private life-to States as well as individuals.
Offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only means of defence.
For it is fixed principle with me, that whatever is done should be done well.
It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being. Religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to religion.
I have never been a communicant.
May Heaven to this Union continue its beneficence.
I had rather be in my grave than in my present situation, I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world; and yet they charge me with wanting to be a king.