The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused.

We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest.

He is too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation.

I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.

The only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting.

The dons, the bashaws, the grandees, the patricians, the sachems, the nabobs, call them by what names you please, sigh and groan and fret, and sometimes stamp and foam and curse, but all in vain. The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America.

Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.