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

As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it.

Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.

Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors.

The happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart

There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution.