Human nature, with all its infirmities and depravation, is still capable of great things.

Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute.

The virtues and powers to which men may be trained, by early education and constant discipline, are truly sublime and astonishing.

The Saracens, the Knights of Malta, the army and navy in the service of the English Republic, among many others, are instances to show to what an exalted height, valor or bravery or courage may be raised, by artificial means.

It should be your care therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children, and exalt their courage, to accelerate and animate their industry and activity, to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice…

If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel and creep all their lives.

Without strength, and activity and vigor of body, the brightest mental excellencies will be eclipsed and obscured.

No German Prince could now send a man, or a musket, to war against its principles.

The measurable failure of this struggle in France, teaches the necessity of due preparation before a people can advance to the permanent possession and enjoyment of their rights.

The American colonists had been trained to rational conceptions of freedom, by lessons of wisdom and sagacity read them by their Puritan fathers, and by the experience in self-government, afforded during a century and a half of enjoyment…

But the people of France, shut up in darkness during centuries of misrule, passed at a step from abject servitude to unlimited freedom.

The interest, the honor, the ultimate prosperity of the whole country--its reputation and influence in the eyes of the world--demanded that the Government should be supported in its efforts to check the aggressions of foreign nations, and…

The Chief Magistrate of a great and powerful nation, should never indulge in party feelings.

Columbia, great Republic, thou art blest, While Empires droop, and Monarchs sink to rest.

No man was a more ardent lover of liberty, or was more anxious that its institutions should be established throughout the earth, at the earliest practicable moment.

I will not stand by and see my fellow-man drowning, without stretching out a hand to help him, till he has, by his own efforts and presence of mind, reached the shore in safety, and then encumber him with aid.

The policy of the United States, with reference to foreign nations, has always been founded upon the moral principle of natural law--Peace with all mankind.

From whatever cause war between other nations, whether foreign or domestic, has arisen, the unvarying law of the United States has been peace with both belligerents.

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all--she is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

I still hold the same opinions; and, although highly respecting the purity of intention of those who object, on constitutional grounds, to the exercise of this power, it is with heartfelt satisfaction that I perceive those objections…

The first object of human association is the improvement of the condition of the associated.

Now is the time to exterminate that monster, called party spirit.