Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.

Everything is useful which contributes to fix the principles and practices of virtue.

I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Laws ... proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.