Life is of no value but as it brings gratifications. among the most valuable of these is rational society. it informs the mind, sweetens the temper, chears our spirits, and promotes health.

The sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also.

We should be determined... to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government... in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness.

In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training.

Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared people a tyranny still of the many, the few, or the one.

Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error.

I never before knew the full value of trees. Under them I breakfast, dine, write, read and receive my company.

My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses.

The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in the four words: 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our enquiries must end.

It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.

I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.

I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living... We seem not to perceive that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independent nation is to another... The earth belongs always to the living generations.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

It would not be for the public good to have a majority in Congress of one party greater than two to one.

Men possessing minds of the first order and who have had opportunities of being known and of acquiring the general confidence do not abound in any country beyond the wants of the country.

That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied.

If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.

No man complains of his neighbor for ill management of his affairs, for an error in sowing his land, or marrying his daughter, for consuming his substance in taverns ... in all these he has liberty; but if he does not frequent the church, or then conform in ceremonies, there is an immediate uproar.

The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.