Almost all the civil liberty now enjoyed in the world owes its origin to the principles of the christian religion.

The Bible must be considered as the great source of all the truth by which men are to be guided in government as well as in all social transactions.

The education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. [I]t is much easier to introduce and establish an effectual system ... than to correct by penal statutes the ill effects of a bad system. ... The education of youth ... lays the foundations on which both law and gospel rest for success.

The laws are the sole guardians of right, and when the magistrate dares not act, every person is insecure.

Let the people have property and they will have power - a power that will forever be exerted to prevent the restriction of the press, the abolition of trial by jury, or the abridgment of any other privilege.

The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.

The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe, which serve to support tyrannical governments, are not the Christian religion, but abuses and corruptions of it. The religion of Christ and his apostles, in it primitive simplicity and purity, unencumbered with the trappings of power and the pomp of ceremonies, is the surest basis of a republican government.