All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.
Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction.