A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.

We have a dangerous trend beginning to take place in our education. We're starting to put more and more textbooks into our schools. We've become accustomed of late of putting little books into the hands of children, containing fables and moral lessons. We're spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principal text in our schools. The Bible states these great moral lessons better than any other man-made book.

We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk of the political interests committed to our charge.

All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent.

We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press...It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it.

I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but . . . I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it.

I have heard it remarked that men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion they have not reasoned themselves into.