I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the following things; but they would have been done by others; some of them, perhaps, a little better.

To take a single step beyond the text would be to take possession of a boundless field of power.

Perseverance in object, though not by the most direct way, is often more laudable than perpetual changes, as often as the object shifts light.

Truth and reason are eternal. They have prevailed. And they will eternally prevail; however, in times and places they may be overborne for a while by violence, military, civil, or ecclesiastical.

The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.

I have sworn upon the altar of god.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.