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.
Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religiou...
Government is not reason it is not eloquence - it is force.
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.
I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.
I beg leave to assure the Congress that no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept this arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness. I do not wish to make any p...
But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myse...
I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.
True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation.
There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy
There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
Undertake not what you cannot perform but be careful to keep your promise.
Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.
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.
If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready...