Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, till not a slave shall on this earth be found.
I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.
To preserve, to improve, and to perpetuate the sources and to direct in their most effective channels the streams which contribute to the public weal is the purpose for which Government was instituted.
Religion, charity, pure benevolence, and morals, mingled up with superstitious rites and ferocious cruelty, form in their combination institutions the most powerful and the most pernicious that have ever afflicted mankind.
A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering.
Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail.
So far as the object of taxation is to raise a revenue for discharging the debts and defraying the expenses of the community, its operation should be adapted as much as possible to suit the burden with equal hand upon all in proportion with their ability of bearing it without oppression.
A man’s diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.
Life is a problem; mortal man was made to solve the solemn problem right or wrong.
The freedom of the press should be inviolate.
The harmony of the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.
Our political way of life is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, and of course presupposes the existence of God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and government.
A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair.
To believe that everyone is honest is folly, but to believe that no one is honest is worse.
Whether to the nation or to the state, no service can be or ever will be rendered by a more able or a more faithful public servant.
To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs.
The magistrate is the servant not of his own desires, not even of the people, but of his God.
It is so obvious to every reasonable being that he did not make himself, and the world in which he inhabits could as little make itself, that the moment we begin to exercise the power of reflection, it seems impossible to escape the conviction that there is a Creator.
Find a mission that you can give yourself over to and then spend your days moving that mission forward. Man is made so that when anything fires his soul the impossibilities vanish. The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. Sir Anthony Hopkins portrayal of me was adequate. I do believe that my sideburns were of substantially higher quality, however.