lawyer
and orator, was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts
, a descendant of an English family which settled in Massachusetts in 1643. His first cousin, physician George Choate, was the father of George C. S. Choate
and Joseph Hodges Choate
. Rufus Choate's birthplace, Choate House
, remains virtually unchanged to this day.
A precocious child, at six he is said to have been able to repeat large parts of the Bible
and of Pilgrim's Progress from memory.
We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we consult no common oracle but the Constitution.
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.
The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good.
Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love of reading.
We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag, and keep step to the music of the Union.
A book is the only immortality.
Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.