Quote collection
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"The States separately have very inadequate ideas of the present danger. Party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day, whilst the concerns of the nation are secondary."
"O most glorious God ... Direct my thoughts, words and work, wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the Lamb, and purge my heart by thy Holy Spirit.... Daily frame me more and more into the likeness of thy Son Jesus Christ.... Thou gavest thy Son to die for me, and hast given me assurance of salvation."
"One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection."
"Influence is not government."
"My own remedy is always to eat, just before I step into bed, a hot roasted onion, if I have a cold."
"If we cannot learn wisdom from experience, it is hard to say where it is to be found."
"The Army, as usual, are without pay; and a great part of the soldiery without shirts; and though the patience of them is equally threadbare, the States seem perfectly indifferent to their cries."
"No Man has a more perfect reliance on the all-wise and powerful dispensations of the Supreme Being than I have, nor thinks his aid more necessary...The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf....In war He directed the sword, and in peace, He has ruled in our councils."
"May 12-13: Sowed Hemp at Muddy hole by Swamp. August 7: Began to separate the Male from the Female at Do - rather too late."
"You have only one way to convince others, listen to them."
"I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species . . . and to disperse the families I have an aversion."
"All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external happiness of elevated office."
"The friendship I have conceived will not be impaired by absence; but it may be no unpleasing circumstance to brighten the chain by a renewal of the covenant."
"A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it. I should be happy that my own experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be placed upon them."
"The thinking part of mankind do not form their judgment from events; and their equity will ever attach equal glory to those actions which deserve success, and those which have been crowned with it."
"Three things prompt men to a regular discharge of their duty in time of action: natural bravery, hope of reward, and fear of punishment."
"Impressed with a conviction that the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good Government, I have considered the first arrangement of the Judicial department as essential to the happiness of our Country, and to the stability of its political system."
"I dare say the men would fight very well if properly officered, although they are an exceedingly dirty and nasty people."
"Men of real talents in Arms have commonly approved themselves patrons of the liberal arts and friends to the poets, of their own as well as former times. In some instances by acting reciprocally, heroes have made poets, and poets heroes."
"The best way to have peace is to always be prepared to fight a way."