Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness, except greed.

Problem solving is hunting. It is savage pleasure and we are born to it.

The President regards the Japanese as a brave people; but courage, though useful in time of war, is subordinate to knowledge of arts; hence, courage without such knowledge is not to be highly esteemed.

Any nation that refuses to hold intercourse with other nations must expect to be excluded from this family.

By means of steam one can go from California to Japan in eighteen days.

If Japan had been near to either England or France, war would have broken out long ago.

If war should break out between England and Japan, the latter would suffer much more than the former.

In case of war, a treaty would have to be made at the end of the war.

In time of war steamships and improved arms are the most important things.

It appears that the English think the Japanese... are fond of opium, and they want to bring it here also.

Since the invention of steamships distant countries have become like those that are near at hand.

The expense of a war could be paid in time; but the expense of opium, when once the habit is formed, will only increase with time.

The nations of the West hope that by means of steam communication all the world will become as one family.

The President of the United States thinks that for the Japanese opium is more dangerous than war.

The United States have no possessions in the east and do not desire to have any, as other countries do.

We do not wish to open your ports to foreign trade all at once.

As the treaty made with the United States was the first treaty entered into by your country with other countries, therefore the President regards Japan with peculiar friendliness.

If I write in my name to the agents of England and France residing in Asia and inform them that Japan is ready to make a commercial treaty with their countries, the number of steamers will be reduced from fifty to two or three.

If you make a treaty first with the United States and settle the matter of the opium trade, England cannot change this, though she should desire to do so.

It will be quite satisfactory if you open them gradually, as the circumstances may require; but the President assures you that this will not be the case if you make a treaty with England first.