If any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government.

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.

The difference, so observable in men's understandings and parts, does not arise so much from their natural faculties, as acquired habits.

Brutes abstract not. -- If it may be doubted, whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas, that way, to any degree; this, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to.

Truth, like gold, is not less so for being newly brought out of the mine.

I pretend not to teach, but to inquire.

Firmness or stiffness of the mind is not from adherence to truth, but submission to prejudice.