I do not think of any Judge of his time anywhere, either here or in England, to whom the profession would ascribe a higher place if he be judged only by the correctness of his opinions in cases where there were no precedents on which to…

I think Judge Gray's fame, on the whole, would have been greater as a man of original power if he had resisted, sometimes, the temptation to marshal an array of cases, and had suffered his judgments to stand on his statement of legal…

He had the rare gift, especially rare in men whose training has been chiefly upon the Bench, of discerning the truth of the fact, in spite of the apparent weight of the evidence.

Judge Gray's opinions for the eighteen years during which he sat on the Bench of Massachusetts constitute an important body of jurisprudence, from which the student can learn the whole range of the law as it rests on principle and on…

Everything that can make life honorable, everything that can make life happy-- honor, success, the consciousness of usefulness, the regard of his countrymen, and the supremest delight of family life-- all were his.

I close this book with a statement of the political principles which I think define the duty of the American people in the near future, and from which I hope the Republic will not depart until time shall be no more; and of the simple…

Resolved, That this Republic adheres to the doctrines which were in the past set forth in the Declaration of Independence and in its National and State constitutions.

To enable great cities to govern themselves in freedom, in honor, and in purity.

To make the ballot box as pure as a sacramental vessel, and the election return as perfect in accord with the law and the truth as a judgment of the Supreme Court.

To banish illiteracy and ignorance from the land.

To secure for every workman and for every working woman wages enough to support a life of comfort and an old age of leisure and quiet, as befits those who have an equal share in a self-governing State.

To grow and expand over the continent and over the islands of the sea just so fast, and no faster, as we can bring into equality and self-government under our Constitution peoples and races who will share these ideals and help to make them…

To set a peaceful example of freedom which mankind will be glad to follow, but never to force even freedom upon unwilling nations at the point of the bayonet or at the cannon's mouth.

To define is to bound, to enclose, to set limit.

The great things of the universe are not to be defined.

I think, also, that the things we are to be glad of and to be proud of and are to be thankful for are not those things that separate us from the great body of Christians or the great body of believers in God and in righteousness, but in…

No Five Points, no Athanasian Creed, no Thirty-nine Articles, separate the men and women of our way of thinking from humanity or from Divinity.

There are men and women for whom Faith, Hope, and Charity forever abide; to whom Judea's news are still glad tidings; who believe that one day Jesus Christ came to this earth, bearing a Divine message and giving a Divine example.

They do not attribute any magic virtue to the laying on of hands; nor do they believe that the traces of an evil life in the soul can be washed out by the sprinkling of a few drops of water, however pure, or by baptism in any blood…

I think there can be found in this country no sectarianism so narrow, so hide-bound, so dogma-clad, that it would like to blot out from the history of the country what the men of our faith have contributed to it.

If we would blot out Unitarianism from the history of the country, we must erase the names of many famous statesmen, many famous philanthropists, many great reformers, many great orators, many famous soldiers, from its annals, and nearly…

Still less could I speak adequately of the men and women who, in almost every neighborhood throughout the country, have found in this Unitarian faith of ours a stimulant to brave and noble lives and a sufficient comfort and support in the…

The difference between Christian sects, like the difference between individual Christians, is not so much in the matter of belief or disbelief of portions of the doctrine of the Scripture as in the matter of emphasis.

It is a special quality and characteristic of Unitarianism that Unitarians everywhere lay special emphasis upon the virtue of Hope.

It was said of Cromwell by his secretary that hope shone in him like a fiery pillar when it had gone out in every other.