I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the following things; but they would have been done by others; some of them, perhaps, a little better.
France, freed from that monster, Bonaparte, must again become the most agreeable country on earth. It would be the second choice of all whose ties of family and fortune give a preference to some other one, and the first choice of all not under those ties.
The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.
It is highly interesting to our country, and it is the duty of its functionaries, to provide that every citizen in it should receive an education proportioned to the condition and pursuits of his life.
The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts.
While learning the language in France a young man’s morals, health and fortune are more irresistibly endangered than in any country of the universe.
When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.
If you are obliged to neglect any thing, let it be your chemistry. It is the least useful and the least amusing to a country gentleman of all the ordinary branches of science.
In a virtuous and free state, no rewards can be so pleasing to sensible minds, as those which include the approbation of our fellow citizens. My great pain is, lest my poor endeavours should fall short of the kind expectations of my country.
The colleges of Edinburgh and Geneva as seminaries of science, are considered as the two eyes of Europe. While Great Britain and America give the preference to the former, all other countries give it to the latter.
Men possessing minds of the first order and who have had opportunities of being known and of acquiring the general confidence do not abound in any country beyond the wants of the country.
Men of high learning and abilities are few in every country; and by taking in those who are not so, the able part of the body have their hands tied by the unable.
They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.
Merchants have no country.
Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country.
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.
A true patriot will defend his country from its government.
I have done for my country and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God – my daughter to my country.
I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life...
I am a real Christian, that is to say, a cisciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator.