A good moral character is the first essential. It is highly important not only to be learned but to be virtuous.

Why should I expect to be exempt from censure; the unfailing lot of an elevated station? My Heart tells me it has been my unremitted aim to do the best circumstances would permit; yet, I may have been very often mistaken in my judgment of the means.

Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, for example, is more prevalent than precepts.

In politics, as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease, and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.

To err is nature, to rectify error is glory.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.