“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.”

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.

In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly.

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.