“Whether they are allowed to be Whigg principles, or not, is a very small part of my concern. I think them exactly as such as the sober, honourable, and intelligent part in that party, have always professed. I think, I have shewn, beyond a possibility of debate, that they are exactly the same. But if any person…choose to think otherwise, and conceive that they are contrary to the Doctrines of their Whigg party,—be it so. I am certain, that they are principles of which no reasonable man or good citizen need be ashamed of. If they are Tory principles, I shall always wish to be thought a Tory, If the contrary of these principles be Whigg principles, I beg, that you, my Dear Friend will never consider me as belonging to that description.”

Speech at the opening of the Palmerston Club, Oxford (December 1878) as quoted in "Gladstone's Conundrums; The Statesman Answers Sundry Interesting Questions" in The New York Times (9 February 1879) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C03E4DB123EE73BBC4153DFB4668382669FDE
1870s

Speech to the Virginia Convention (1861)
Context: These are pregnant statements; they avow a sentiment, a political principle of action, a sentiment of hatred to slavery as extreme as hatred can exist. The political principle here avowed is, that his action against slavery is not to be restrained by the Constitution of the United States, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. I say, if you can find any degree of hatred greater than that, I should like to see it. This is the sentiment of the chosen leader of the Black Republican party; and can you doubt that it is not entertained by every solitary member of that same party? You cannot, I think. He is a representative man; his sentiments are the sentiments of his party; his principles of political action are the principles of political action of his party. I say, then; it is true, at least, that the Republican party of the North hates slavery.

Draft of a letter to the Grand Lodge of Free Masons of the State of Maryland (8 November 1798) http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw4/113/0400/0495.jpg
1790s
Context: So far as I am acquainted with the principles & Doctrines of Free Masonry, I conceive it to be founded in benevolence and to be exercised only for the good of mankind. If it has been a Cloak to promote improper or nefarious objects, it is a melancholly proof that in unworthy hands, the best institutions may be made use of to promote the worst designs.

see St. Augustine, Civitate Dei, 1. XI, c. xxvi
The Art of Persuasion
Context: I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle: Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind of Descartes, and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years before.... I am far from affirming that Descartes is not the real author of it, even if he may have learned it only in reading this distinguished saint; for I know how much difference there is between writing a word by chance without making a longer and more extended reflection on it, and perceiving in this word an admirable series of conclusions, which prove the distinction between material and spiritual natures, and making of it a firm and sustained principle of a complete metaphysical system, as Descartes has pretended to do.... it is on this supposition that I say that this expression is as different in his writings from the saying in others who have said it by chance, as in a man full of life and strength, from a corpse.

Source: After Virtue (1981), p. 42.

"On Eating and Drinking".
Source: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
Context: Foolish people — when I say "foolish people" in this contemptuous way I mean people who entertain different opinions to mine. If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do.

During an interview on 60 Minutes (11 November 2016)
2010s, 2016, November

Interview with Laura Knoy, New Hampshire Public Radio (5 November 2003)
Context: I think General Eisenhower was exactly right, I think we should be concerned about the military-industrial complex. I think if you look at where the country is today you've consolidated all these defense firms into just a few large firms — like Halliburton — and with contracts and contacts at the top level of government. You've got most of the retired generals are one way or another associated with the defense firms — that's the reason that you'll find very few of them speaking out in any public way — I'm not. When I got out I determined I wasn't going to sell arms, I was going to do as little as possible with the Department of Defense because I just figured it was time to make a new start. But I think the military-industrial complex does wield a lot of influence — I'd like to see us create a different complex. And I'm going to be talking about foreign policy in a major speech tomorrow, but we need to create an agency that is not about waging war but about creating conditions for peace around the world. We need some people who will be advocates for peace, advocates for economic development abroad, not just advocates for better weapon systems. So we need to create countervailing power to the military-industrial complex.