Rufus Choate

A book is the only immortality.

Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.

We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag, and keep step to the music of the Union.

Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love of reading.

All that happens in the world of Nature or Man, — every war; every peace; every hour of prosperity; every hour of adversity; every election; every death ; every life; every success and every failure, — all change, — all permanence, — the …

There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.

The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good.

The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience." It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself.

We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we consult no common oracle but the Constitution.