A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.

I am not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk and tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction.

One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

Sleep not when others speak, sit not when others stand, speak not when you should hold your peace, walk not when others stop.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.

I rejoice in a belief that intellectual light will spring up in the dark corners of the earth; that freedom of enquiry will produce liberality of conduct; that mankind will reverse the absurd position that the many were, made for the few; and that they will not continue slaves in one part of the globe, when they can become freemen in another.