Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master.

Freemasonry is an order whose leading star is philanthropy and whose principles inculcate an unceasing devotion to the cause of virtue and morality.

I consider it an indubitable mark of mean-spiritedness and pitiful vanity to court applause from the pen or tongue of man.

It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am.

In his address of 19 September 1796, given as he prepared to leave office, President George Washington spoke about the importance of morality to the country's well-being: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?

We must take care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, in a respectable defensive posture.