During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.

We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands; we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.

A taste for literature and a turn for business, united in the same person, never fails to make a great man.

An honest, sensible, humane man, . . . laboring to do good rather than be rich, to be useful rather than make a show, living in modest simplicity . . . is really the most respectable man in society, [and] makes himself and all about him most happy.

Elections, especially of representatives and counselors, should be annual, there not being in the whole circle of the sciences a maxim more infallible than this, "where annual elections end, there slavery begins." These great men ... should be (chosen) once a year-Like bubbles on the sea of matter bourne, they rise, they break, and to the sea return. This will teach them the great political virtues of humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.

To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.

If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle