If all my talents and powers were to be taken from me by some unscrutable Providence, and I had my choice of keeping but one, I would unhesitatingly ask for be allowed to keep the Power of Speaking, for through it I would quickly recover all the rest.

Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money.

There is something on earth greater than arbitrary or despotic power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind has its power, and the earthquake has its power; but there is something among men more capable of shaking despotic thrones than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake, and that is, the excited and aroused indignation of the whole civilized world.

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint; the more restraint on others to keep off from us, the more liberty we have.

On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.

Good intentions will always be pleaded, for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it ... It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.

The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.