All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.
No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible.
Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth.
The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war.
We know the redemption must come. The time and the manner of its coming we know not: It may come in peace, or it may come in blood; but whether in peace or in blood, LET IT COME.
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.