“If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity.”

Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.

Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth,

It is better to be alone than in bad company.

A bad war is fought with a good mind.

To persevere in one’s duty, and be silent is the best answer to calumny.

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.

Speak not injurious words neither in jest nor earnest; scoff at none although they give occasion

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

Heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.

Every man thinks God is on his side.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

It is hard to contend against one’s heart’s desire; for whatever it wishes to have it buys at the cost of soul.

You have the strength to become what you desire.

Where they love they do not desire and where they desire they do not love.

Every desire is a self-portrait of the person who pursues it.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.

Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.