“Occasional war is one of the rigorous instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the character of nations.”

You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.

Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

Gratitude, warm, sincere, intense, when it takes possession of the bosom, fills the soul to overflowing and scarce leaves room for any other sentiment or thought.

Move or die is the language of our Maker in the constitution of our bodies.

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone.

Defeat appears to me preferable to total inaction.

Above all, except the wife and children, I want to see my books.

To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is, the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence.

The will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth.

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.

I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough neither. The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.

I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.

To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so, is something worse.

It was the special purpose of Christ’s appearance upon earth to bring immortality to light.

One characteristic of winners is they always look upon themselves as a do it yourself project.

Find better company, find company of people better than yourself so you be surrounded with those best in character and so you may learn something.

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust — not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.

Character is what a man is in the dark.

I would have been a terrible mother because I’m basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children.

We are put in situations to build our character, not destroy us.

There is no cramming for a test of character. It always comes as a pop quiz.

Well, the thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they’re constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human.