“The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.”

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.

I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.

I’ve had so many rebirths, I should come with my own midwife by now.

Men are a luxury, not a necessity.

I’ve never compromised who I am not ever. If I’ve gotten anywhere in my life it’s been on my own merits.

If you’re paid before you walk on the court, what’s the point in playing as if your life depended on it?

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

You can only depend on yourself. The cavalry aint coming.

There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means.

in today’s world no country can be absolutely independent of another. It is a world of interdependence.