Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.

We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .

I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.

Of all the cankers of human happiness none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful an influence, as indolence.

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.