“A politician in this country must be the man of a party. I would fain be the man of my whole country.”

If the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Independence, as self-evident truths, are real truths, the existence of slavery, in any form, is a wrong.

Go on and improve in everything worthy.

To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.

In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do.

Try and fail, but don’t fail to try.

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all His laws.

If conscience disapproves, the loudest applauses of the world are of little value.

Posterity – you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.

My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.

I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong.

It is my wish to fill every moment of my time with some action of the mind which may contribute to the pleasure or the improvement of my fellow creatures.

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

Democracy, pure democracy, has at least its foundation in a generous theory of human rights.

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.

America, goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

Tyranny can scarcely be practiced upon a virtuous and wise people.

Though it cost the blood of millions of white men, let it come. Let justice be done.

The imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? the state of nature from which he has been removed? imagine, wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home.

Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.

How shall a man judge what to do in such times?’

Men are objects to me.

We salute the rank not the man.

We noted before that the passion of compassion was singularly absent from the minds and hearts of the men who made the American Revolution.