The fact is that one new idea leads to another, that to a third and so on through a course of time, until someone, with whom no one of these ideas was original, combines all together, and produces what is justly called a new invention.
The greatest honor of a man is in doing good to his fellow men, not in destroying them.
The religion of Jesus is founded in the Unity of God, and this principle chiefly gave it triumph over the rabble of heathen gods then acknowledged. Thinking men of all nations rallied readily to the doctrine of one only God, and embraced it with the pure-morals which Jesus inculcated.
The tender breasts of ladies were not formed for political convulsion.
We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce.
We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but the guarrantors of only our own.
We see the wisdom of Solon’s remark, that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear.
While prudence will endeavor to avoid this issue of war, bravery will prepare to meet it.
Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.
In the environment, every victory is temporary, every defeat permanent.
Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.
The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.
Stock dealers and banking companies, by the aid of a paper system, are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing presses, which their wealth commands and by any other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen.
It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.
While the principles of our Constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will deem embodied expressions of discontent and open outrages of law and patriotism as dishonorable as they are injurious.
We think, in America, that it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government, as far as they are capable of exercising it, and that this is the only way to ensure a long continued and honest administration of its powers.
My general plan would be to make the States one as to everything connected with foreign nations and several as to everything purely domestic.
When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it.
I believe we may lessen the danger of buying and selling votes, by making the number of voters too great for any means of purchase. I may further say that I have not observed men’s honesty to increase with their riches.
Our ancient laws expressly declare that those who are but delegates themselves shall not delegate to others powers which require judgment and integrity in their exercise.