“To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.”

I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.

A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it.

Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good.

The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

Best of wives and best of women.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state for the acquisition of wealth.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

A powerful, victorious ally is yet another name for master.

The very aim and intention of the democratical part, or the house of commons, is to secure the rights of the people. It’s very being depends upon those rights. Its whole power is derived from them, and must be terminated by them.

Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.

All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people.

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government. The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure.

Cleaning up the country cannot be the sole responsibility of sweepers. Do citizens have no role in this? We have to change this mindset.

In a republic the first rule for the guidance of the citizen is obedience of the law.

Education should be the handmaid of citizenship.

We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn’t it either. I’m going to be an American Citizen. First-class.

Experts always know everything but the fine points. When I took my citizenship exams, no one there knew how the White House came to be called the White House.

Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.

The kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies.