"I have encountered passionate materialists whose closing of the eyes to faith was as fanatical as religious zeal."

"I think that the most important thing for a nation is to have a good government, even if it is a despotic one."

"The most dangerous of all errors is to believe that error itself is harmless."

"The Americans are a people who are always talking about liberty, but they are also a people who are always ready to give it up."

"The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory."