It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.

Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.

A single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual; subject to fits of humor, starts of passion, flights of enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgments. And all these errors ought to be corrected and defects supplied by some controlling power.

The whole drama of the world is such tragedy that I am weary of the spectacle.

Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.

Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be.