In a virtuous government, and more especially in times like these, public offices are what they should be - burdens to those appointed to them which it would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring them intense labor and great private loss.

If I could not go to heaven with but a party, I would not go there at all. Therefore, I am not of the party of federalists. But I am much further from that of the anti-federalists.

If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.

The ordinary affairs of a nation offer little difficulty to a person of any experience.

I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing.

Without books, I would certainly die.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.