We may... affirm that the balance of power in a society accompanies the balance of property in land. The only possible way, then, of preserving the balance of power on the side of liberty and public virtue is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society; to make a division of the land into small quantities, so that the multitude may be possessed of landed estates.

Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

The Constitution is ...the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen

I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.

When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.

To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.