There is no greater guilt than the unneccessary war.

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences.

People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity.

There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will - a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic; this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.

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

The Christian Religion as I understand it is the best.

Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.