“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.

There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

We are no guiltier in following the primative impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.

Our program is simple: we wish to govern Italy. They ask us for programs but there are already too many. It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation of Italy but men and will power.

It will be proved that it extends everywhere, most fluid and simple, and nowhere presents obstacles as was formerly held, the circuits of the Planets being wholly free and without the labour and whirling round of any real spheres at all, being divinely governed under a given law.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.

Governing today means giving acceptable signs of credibility. It is like advertising and it is the same effect that is achieved – commitment to a scenario.

Would Americans accept if we decided to come here and decide who your rulers should be? So why do you expect us Iranians to accept the idea that the United States shall come in there and decide who shall govern us?