We are now to rank among the nations of the world; but whether our Independence shall prove a blessing or a curse must depend upon our own wisdom or folly, virtue or wickedness.... Justice and virtue are the vital principles of republican government.

The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.

Don't wait around for your life to happen to you. Find something that makes you happy, and do it. Because everything else is all just background noise.

Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens.

Who are the militia, if they be not the people, of this country...? I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.

I retired from public Business from a thorough Conviction that it was not in my Power to do any Good, and very much disgusted with Measures, which appeared to me inconsistent with common Policy and Justice.

A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings.