he was a valuable young man, and his loss has given great concern to me ... the object of the present is to see if you can procure one to supply his place. good humor & sobriety are the two indispensable qualities. skill in his business is now become more important, as I shall be little at...

Nero wished all the necks of Rome united in one, that he might sever them at a blow. so our ex-federalists, wishing to have a single representative of all the objects of their hatred, honour me with that post, and exhibit against me such atrocities as no nation has ever before heard or endured. I...

1. never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day. 2. never trouble another with what you can do yourself 3. never spend your money before you have it 4. never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you. 5. take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of...

The laws of humanity make it a duty for nations, as well as individuals, to succour those whom accident & distress have thrown upon them.

in stating prudential rules for our government in society I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many of their getting warm, becoming rude, &...

I have wished to know what you have entered on, what progress you have made, and how your hours are distributed. for it is only by a methodical distribution of our hours, & a rigorous, inflexible observance of it that any steady progress can be made ... I would advise you to make the...

I would advise you, as an exercise, to write a letter to somebody every morning, the first thing after you get up. as most of the business of life, & all our friendly communications are by way of letter, nothing is more important than to acquire a facility of developing our ideas on paper;...

I give more time to exercise of the body than of the mind, believing it wholesome to both.

an honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens ... this is my belief of it; it is that on which I have acted; and had it been a mere contest who should be permitted to administer the government according to it’s genuine republican principles, there has never...

it is more a subject of joy that we have so few of the desperate characters which compose modern regular armies....

to do wrong is a melancholy resource. even where retaliation renders it indispensably necessary. it is better to suffer much from the scalpings, the incensions conflagrations, the rapes and rapine of savages, than to countenance and strengthen such barbarisms by retortion. I have ever deemed it...

yet experience & frequent disappointment have taught me not to be over-confident in theories or calculations, until actual trial has stam of the whole combination has stamped it with approbation.